Excisable products: computerised intra-Community movement system

The Commission has accepted all but one of the amendments proposed by the European Parliament, either in part or principal, or subject to reformulation. Those amendments accepted include the following: - the computerised system will, if technically possible, be merged with NCTS. Together they will form a single integrated computer system for surveillance of the movements both of excisable goods and of excisable/dutiable third-country goods; - access to the system shall be free of charge for economic operators; - the operation of the current system must be improved pending total computerisation, because of the time that this will take to complete; - candidate countries will be kept informed and be invited to take part in the tests; The rejected amendment concerns the excise guarantee rules and would entail amendments to Member States' tax legislation as it applies to excise goods. Certain amendments have been proposed during discussions in Council: - changes to the timetable for implementation of the computerised system (six years), the date of entry into force of the decision (1 January 2003) and the management procedure for the project; - clarification that the decision was not intended to amend tax legislation on excise duties but simply to give the Commission and Member States the financial and human resources to develop and set up the computerised system for the monitoring and movement of excisable products and to specify the procedures that should be used to do this.�