War: How does it highlight the role of a customs specialist, and related challenges?

The war in Ukraine and all the wars and armed conflicts happening around the world highlight the role of customs and customs specialists, especially as it regards compliance with restrictions and prohibitions. Customs specialists must be not only active, but also proactive, so that bad hands do not get access to the tools they can use to cause suffering.

Many other topic-related aspects were discussed, and views from various countries were shared during the 10^th Authors’ Meeting, which took place on 17^th March 2022.

Mis-declaration of goods in order to circumvent EU restrictions
Enrika Naujokė, Director of Lithuanian Customs Practitioners Association, Lithuania

Lithuanian customs informs on their website that clearance times became longer as the controls were strengthened because "there have been increasing cases of persons mis-declaring goods in order to circumvent EU restrictions" towards Russia and Belarus. There have always been businesses whose goal is just to ‘get customs done’.

How can we change this? One of the options, customs brokers, as intermediaries between business and customs, could play an important role. As statistics show, in 2020, 85% of import and 87% of export declarations in Lithuania were made using customs brokers’ services. Therefore, customs brokers answer questions, consult, and educate their clients, and act as the first checkpoint of information and documents.

However, they will not perform well if they do not possess sufficient and up-to-date knowledge and a framework of how to apply the knowledge in practice to make the biggest impact. How do countries deal with that? An example, which might be worth considering in other countries, can be found in the USA: recently, the USA imposed new continuing education requirements for customs brokers.

Correct implementation of sanctions is a challenge for customs and business
Šarūnas Avižienis, Head of Customs Policy Division, Lithuanian Customs

The application of sanctions imposed against Russia and Belarus is currently topic number one for Lithuanian Customs. New sanctions and their correct implementation are a challenge for both customs officials and economic operators. To try to solve this issue, the Special Coordinating Working Group at Customs has been created. It acts on two levels: regional and central.

On the regional level, there are one or more customs officials responsible for the coordination of the application of sanctions in every regional customs office. They coordinate officials from local customs offices regarding these applications. More complicated issues are solved on the central level.

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