The common transit procedure does not work as well as it should.

For documentary requirements, see the page in this guide on Community/common transit procedures.

I am prepared to accept the additional reference to combating fraud in the Community and common transit procedure.

General enquiries regarding the Community/common transit procedures.

Extension of Common Transit Procedures to Romania.

If you have a general enquiry regarding the Community/common transit procedures, you should contact the Excise and Customs Helpline.

If goods are moving to or through a European Free Trade Association (EFTA) country, the Common Transit procedure should be used.

Where goods have travelled under the Community or common transit procedures, the copy of the transit document retained by the Office of Destination will be the summary declaration.

Unfortunately, however, just as we have problems in the common transit procedure, we clearly have common transit problems between the Breydel and the Berlaymont that we must sort out.

The Common Transit procedure can be used for movements via and between the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries (Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Iceland).

The report voices serious concern about the functioning of the common transit system and its enlargement, last July, to the four Visegrad countries.

The first measures to assist the new candidates are due to begin next autumn, but without prejudging in any way the possible date of future extensions of the common transit system.

My final question is to ask the Commission to give us an undertaking. It presumes that the reform of the transit system will be completed before the next extension of the common transit system.

My second question to Commissioner Monti asks specifically whether the Commission apprised the Visegrad countries themselves of the difficulties being encountered in managing the Community and the common transit systems before accession.

I must stress the need for the New Computerised Transit System (NCTS) to come into operation soon in all the Member States and the countries associated with the common transit system.

The decision to extend the system was taken only when the Community and the other contracting parties were convinced of the ability of the Visegrad countries to assume all the obligations of the common transit system.

With that in mind, my services have organized wide-ranging consultations both within the Commission and with the Member States and other countries involved in the common transit system, as well as with the entire private sector.

Mr President, Mr Monti himself has told us on previous occasions that the Common Transit System is going through a difficult period because of a loss of efficiency in national Customs authorities coinciding with the arrival of the single market.

Thirdly, has the Commission undertaken any negotiations with any other associated countries with a view to their accession to the Common Transit Convention and will these countries be required to wait longer than the Visegrad states before acceding to the common transit system?

Even in national economic systems such as those of Europe, where the market economy is linked to these nations' history, we find that freedom of trade encounters serious problems and obstacles, and that a system as potentially excellent as the common transit system meets with instances of misuse and fraud.

During the three years preceding adhesion to the common transit system, the Community, together with the other parties to the Convention, contributed significantly to the preparation of these candidate countries in order to ensure that the customs administrations and operators were fully briefed about these systems and trained and prepared for their use.

And then the question: ' Will the Commission give an undertaking that it will not seek to extend the common transit system beyond the four Visegrad countries until such time as the system has been reformed and that these reforms have been shown to be effective in reducing fraud against the system' ?

' On 1 July 1996 the common transit system was extended to Poland, Hungary and the Czech and Slovak Republics, despite the Commission admission that the system is in a state of crisis, that there are rising levels of fraud and that the system is in need of fundamental reform' .

Having said that, I stand by the undertaking I gave to the Committee of Inquiry - and I know how much importance Mr Tomlinson and Mr Kellett-Bowman attach to this - that there will be no further extension of the common transit system until it has been reformed and computerized.