The European Commission adopted a new proposal which intends to reach a more efficient cooperation in collecting excise duties. The new Regulation would replace the existing rules, to better reflect the introduction of the computerised Excise Movement and Control System (EMCS) in April 2010.

The Commission adopted a proposal which seeks to revise the rules on administrative cooperation in order to reap the full benefit of the Excise Movement and Control System. In particular, the new Regulation would replace the existing rules, to better reflect the introduction of the computerised Excise Movement and Control System (EMCS) in April 2010. Currently, part of the information exchange between Member States on the movement of excise products (alcohol, tobacco and energy products) is still done manually. Computerising this exchange will make it easier and faster to collect the excise duties that are due. Additionally, this would help to apply the Directive on on general arrangements for excise duties on energy, alcohol and manufactured tobacco adopted in 2009.

The Excise Movement and Control System is a computerised system that monitors the movement of excise goods for which duties still have to be paid. The next new phase of the Excise Movement and Control System will replace manual administrative cooperation procedures with electronic ones, and will help to remove the need for manual collection of operational statistics on the movement of excise goods.

The Commission also highlights that the proposal also clarifies the rights and obligations of Member States in terms of requests they can submit to each other, information they must provide, deadlines to answer requests, and use of standardised forms for these exchanges. The ultimate objective is to ensure that the process for Member States to collect and retrieve excise duties is as smooth and efficient as possible.