All news & events

The U.S. Senate has introduced on the 3rd February its amendments to the Ocean Shipping Reform Act (OSRA), aimed at promoting U.S. exports while curbing carriers’ power over both container service and equipment fees charged to shippers. The bill is a result of a bipartisan effort, led by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Democrat, Minnesota) and Sen. John Thune (Republican, South Dakota), and cosponsored by 12 additional senators.

The CLECAT Road Logistics Institute met on 1st February to exchange views on developments affecting road transport and logistics at national and EU level. Members discussed the practical implementation of the new rules introduced by the Mobility Package I, the political developments related to the Fit for 55 Package and the new set of proposals for an efficient and green mobility published by the Commission in December 2021.

On 4 February, CLECAT attended the second meeting of the EU Domestic Advisory Group (DAG) under the EU-UK Trade and Facilitation Agreement (TCA), which advises the EU Commission on the TCA implementation. EU DAG members reflected on experiences with EU-UK trade one year after the post Brexit deal entered into force and outlined remaining challenges and priorities.

On 2 February, ENVI rapporteur Mohammed Chahim presented his draft report on the European Commission’s proposal for EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), stressing the importance of the mechanism for achieving EU’s ambitious climate objectives. While welcoming the overall design of the mechanism, as proposed by the Commission, as a solid starting point for the legislative process, Mr Chahim proposes substantial and important changes to the initial text, aiming to further strengthen CBAM’s climate ambition, its long-term effectiveness and governance.

On 26 January, the global customs community celebrated the International Customs day. WCO Secretary General, Dr. Kunio Mikuriya, revealed the theme of the year “Scaling up Customs Digital Transformation by Embracing a Data Culture and Building a Data Ecosystem”.

The European Commission has opened a public consultation on views and experiences regarding the new EU e-commerce rules, as part of its currently ongoing work on revisiting the customs and taxation collection systems for e-commerce (fiscal aspects) and on identifying innovative customs control approaches for e-commerce imports (non-fiscal aspects).

Earlier this week, the European Commission published the third report on the progress achieved in the development of the electronic systems under the UCC since its entry into force on 1 May 2016.

As part of the French Presidency of the Council of the European Union, CLECAT was invited to participate in the Conference "Brexit: one year of customs formalities, assessment and perspectives", organized by the Directorate General of Customs and Excises on 27 January.