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CLECAT participated in the eighth edition of the Trade & Customs Compliance Conference, organised by the Trade & Customs Compliance Academy and held on 21 and 22 May 2026 in Warsaw. The two-day event brought together representatives of the Polish Ministry of Finance and the National Revenue Administration, academics, customs practitioners and industry, with this year's edition focusing on trade and customs compliance and market protection measures, including sanctions, export control and new EU regulations.

On the first day, Eva Cartwright, Senior Manager responsible for customs and digitalisation, spoke on behalf of CLECAT in a panel on the role of customs agencies in the context of forthcoming changes to customs legislation, technological progress and the establishment of the future EU Customs Authority (EUCA). She was joined by representatives of UPS Europe and several Polish customs agencies and associations.

Ms Cartwright addressed the paradigm shift facing the profession under the Customs Reform, noting concerns that the way the new Union Customs Code redistributes liability across supply chains risks diminishing, or in some cases, due to unrealistic new expectations regarding liabilities, eliminating the role of customs intermediaries as we know it. She drew a parallel with the 2004 enlargement, when accession of 10 new Central European countries to the EU led to the closure of the large majority of physical clearance points across the new Member States and many feared the end of the profession, which nevertheless endured.

She also observed that recent implementation issues suggest policymakers remain largely unaware of the role customs intermediaries play and the extent to which traders rely on their expertise, authorisations and IT systems. The European Commission appears to assume that SMEs and larger trading companies either already hold in-house customs expertise or will find it worthwhile to invest in their own customs departments under the new UCC, an assumption that industry largely disputes. As long as the profession maintains the highest quality standards, is able to diversify and adapt, Cartwright concluded, many traders will continue to prefer outsourcing this expertise and national customs authorities will continue to value and rely on intermediaries as a compliance guarantee and data quality filter.