The Trade Specialised Committee on Customs Cooperation and Rules of Origin (the “Committee“) is scheduled to meet for the first time on Thursday 7 October. The joint EU/UK Committee was established by the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (“TCA“) with the role of monitoring and reviewing the consistency in implementation of the TCA Rules of Origin across the EU and the UK as well as related enforcement, and to provide a joint forum for discussing related technical issues.
This Thursday, the Committee will discuss matters ranging from new legislative developments under the EU and the UK’s respective customs regimes, procedural aspects of the TCA rules of origin, aspects concerning the mutual recognition of Authorised Economic Operator status, to future customs cooperation between the EU and the UK (the full agenda is available here). Of key interest to the Customs practitioners community is that the following are also due to be discussed:
- the preparation of a Common Interpretative Note on “insufficient production” as defined in Article 43, TCA. This builds on the guidance that was published by the EU and the UK respectively this summer on the concept of “insufficient production”, available here and here;
- a joint draft decision on the procedure for consultation in the scenario envisaged by Article 63(3), TCA where an importing Party denies preferential treatment following an opinion issued by the exporting Party on the originating status of the product concerned and either party requests that a consultation be held; and
- the technical adaptation of the TCA’s Product Specific Rules of Origin in light of any changes to the tariff classification of products following the implementation of the 2022 update of the Harmonised System.
The first meeting of the Trade Specialised Committee on Goods, which has responsibility for goods market access issues between the EU and the UK, also takes place this week, on Friday 8 October. This joint forum is set to discuss UK renewable energy schemes, EU initiatives to address carbon emissions embedded in imports, and the exchange of annual import statistics amongst other matters. The agenda for the meeting is available here.
