New rules on administrative cooperation in the field of excise duties, which would speed up the collection of the duties and improve Member States' controls on the revenue, have been proposed by the Commission on November 14, 2011. The new Regulation would replace the existing rules, to better reflect the introduction of the computerised Excise Movement and Control System (EMCS) in April 2010. Currently, part of the information exchange between Member States on the movement of excise products (alcohol, tobacco and energy products) is still done manually. Computerising this exchange will make it easier and faster to collect the excise duties that are due.

This proposal seeks to revise the rules on administrative cooperation in order to reap the full benefit of the Excise Movement and Control System. In particular, the new Regulation replaces manual procedures with automated procedures wherever this information is electronically available within the EMCS. This includes, for example, information on road controls or interruptions in the movement of goods.

The proposal also clarifies the rights and obligations of Member States in terms of requests they can submit to each other, information they must provide, deadlines to answer requests, and use of standardised forms for these exchanges. The ultimate objective is to ensure that the process for Member States to collect and retrieve excise duties is as smooth and efficient as possible.

Background

The existing excise administrative cooperation regulation has been in place since 2004. It provides binding rules governing the exchange of information between national authorities and more direct contacts between anti-fraud agencies. The Commission has today proposed that these rules now be revised in order to align them with the benefits that the new Excise Movement and Control System offers.

The Excise Movement and Control System is a computerised system that monitors the movement of excise goods for which duties still have to be paid. Since April 2010, the paper document that used to have to accompany such movements (the Administrative Accompanying Document) has been replaced with electronic messages from the consignor to the consignee via Member State administrations.

The next new phase of the Excise Movement and Control System will replace manual administrative cooperation procedures with electronic ones, and will help to remove the need for manual collection of operational statistics on the movement of excise goods.