Action programme for customs (Customs 2020), 2014-2020

The Commission staff working paper on the Customs 2020 programme concerns the progress report for 2015. It notes that 2015 represented a return to a more standard programme year, following the exceptional nature of 2014 as the first (and shorter in duration) year of the new Customs 2020 programme.

The indicators obtained under the framework in 2015 give an overall positive assessment, suggesting that the programme was on course to fulfilling its objectives and that it played an important role in facilitating the development of Union customs policy through its European Information Systems, joint actions and human competency building.

The key strengths and achievements are largely the same as in 2014:

·         increased demand for programme support: there was a general increase in the number of activities, organised events and participation levels.  In the area of IT, there is an increased demand for programme support in the development of new systems;

·         an increased level of achievement of results of the joint actions, particularly working visits, is reported by the action managers;

·         a positive assessment of the results of the joint actions in terms of  their usefulness; 

·         networking among programme participants remains high;

·         the volume of data traffic on European Information Systems increased by a large margin in 2015;

·         the Customs Competency Framework was rolled out, and  a third of European customs administrations are already aligned with the framework;

·         the use of online collaboration (PICS) by national and European customs officials significantly increased.

The 2015 indicators do not warrant any specific new conclusions, but a number of those from 2014 are further specified:

·         there continues to be a discrepancy between what action managers and national participants report concerning the sharing of programme outputs at the national level. A more structured and transparent approach to the sharing of programme outputs would be desirable, but this approach would need to address a number of security, privacy and technical challenges. The Commission initiated in 2016 discussions on creating such an approach. Progress in this initiative should be seen as a longer-term goal that will require gradual change, both in terms of securing necessary stakeholders' support and possible adaptations of IT systems;

·         although the response rate among action managers and participants to working visits is rising, the response rate among the participants to other types of joint actions has fallen from 68% in 2014 to 55% in 2015. The Commission and national programme teams should try to bring it above the 70% mark.