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The EU plans to make ecommerce platforms such as TEMU, Shein and Amazon Marketplace responsible for dangerous or illegal products sold online, in a flood of imports from China.
According to a project -first project by Financial Times, customs reforms will force online platforms to provide data before the goods reach the EU, allowing officials to control and inspect packages better. The proposal comes between concerns about the growth of dangerous and forged goods sent from Asia directly to European clients.
Currently, every EU individual who buys goods online is treated as an importer for customs purposes. But the reforms, if approved, would pass responsibility on the platforms.
“The increasing volume of products that are unsafe, forged or otherwise not consistent leads to serious safety and health risks to consumers, has an unstable environmental impact, and nourishes unfair competition for legitimate businesses, with an impact Important in competition in different sectors, ”the proposal reads.
EU imported 4.6bn low -value parcels to 2024, a fourfold increase in 2022. More than 90 percent were from China. The large volume of these items sets a “unstable strain for the authorities”, according to the draft.
According to the reforms, online retailers will have to “collect the task and the respective VAT” and “ensure the compliance of the goods with other EU requirements”. The proposal also removes an actual exception to goods worth less than 150 € from the payment of the task, making them subject to customs controls.
Customs data from the 27 national authorities will be united and a new EU Central Customs Authority (EUCA), according to the draft, will be established. The document is still being discussed inside and may change before publication on February 5th.
“EUCA will be able to control goods based on this information and identify potential risks, even before loading goods for transport or their physical arrival in the EU,” the document said.
“This will allow the customs authorities to have a complete summary of the supply chains, providing controls on imports and exports and making control recommendations for Member States.”
Falsification costs clothing industry close to 12BN € on annual sales (5 percent of revenue), 3BN € cosmetics industry (5 percent of sales) and toy industry 1bn € (almost 9 percent of sales), according to the proposal.
New block waste rules will also force sellers to contribute to the cost of annihilating unwanted products, including clothes, the document adds.
The EU will also consider setting a package fee for the package, a plan first discovered by FT.
According to the rules divided by polling the market behavior of large online platforms, the commission is already investigating Shein and Amazon and has begun procedures against Aliexpress and Temu.
Online market sites are exempt from responsibility for goods sold on their website by other sellers unless they sell illegal or dangerous products consciously or fail to remove them rapidly when detected.
Temu and Shein have all told them before that they match the EU rules. Temu has said he supports the policy changes that benefit from consumers.
Amazon has said that there are proactive measures in the country to prevent unsafe or non -compatible products from ranking on its site.
