The eCustoms Central Applications Platform for the Government to Government (G2G) and Government to Business (G2B) Data Exchange and Retrieval

For more than 15 years, the EU customs policy has required the implementation of IT trans-European systems to enable the exchange of information between national customs administration, the Commission, and in some cases traders. Since 2003, when the Commission issued a Communication on a simple and paperless environment for customs and trade that was subsequently endorsed by the Council, the efforts towards creating increasingly efficient, effective and interoperable information and communication systems have been bundled under the electronic customs initiative. In parallel, the emergence of the Web and the irresistible push towards eGovernment offers an increasing number of services to the citizen. These services provide the citizen with a view of the critical business information which is exchanged between the Commission and the national administrations. DG TAXUD also provides IT services to serve its own internal business needs in the area of customs. It is crucially important to understand that, in order to serve its Member States base, DG TAXUD manages IT services which rely on “Centrally Developed Applications” operated by the Commission acting as Government-to-Government service.