The European Commission’s numerous new market protection measures have led to increasing bureaucracy and rising costs for importing companies, says Gerber Group, a German-based trader of stainless steel.
In an opinion article in its newsletter, The Stainless Espresso, the group deems the new measures “unnecessary” and notes they overburden European customs authorities. “This overburdening of the EU customs authorities, as is currently the case in Belgium, for example, unfortunately gives the fatal impression of official arbitrariness,” Gerber says in the piece seen by Kallanish.
Belgian customs clearance, especially, does not have the appropriate care or the necessary expertise, and often refers to lawyers and courts, the group claims. “This has even gone so far that important documents that are required for imports are no longer even checked and the anti-dumping customs hammer is simply swung straight away,” it notes.
Gerber tells of a recent case in which Belgian Customs simply arbitrarily changed the customs code when importing Taiwanese stainless steel without carefully checking the facts. The authority then asked for high anti-dumping duties from the receiving importer.
The “piquant detail” is that these are specifically the anti-dumping duties from the EU’s new and “questionable” anti-circumvention proceedings against flat rolled stainless steel imports from Vietnam, Turkey and Taiwan, Gerber notes.
Belgian Customs could not be immediately contacted for comment.
Gerber notes this is an not isolated case, pointing at reports in July that incorrect TARIC codes were used by EU customs authorities and anti-dumping duties were levied unlawfully.
Christian Koehl Germany
