Reduction of customs delays at international rail frontiers

Recommendation 605 (1970)

Author(s):

Parliamentary Assembly

Origin

Assembly debate on 19 September 1970 (11th Sitting) (see Doc. 2803, report of the Committee on Economic Affairs and Development). Text adopted by the Assembly on 19 September 1970 (11th Sitting).

Thesaurus

The Assembly,

1. Conscious of the need to make international freight haulage by rail more attractive to users if present massive railway operating deficits, which fall on the tax-payer, are to be reduced;

2. Aware that a major factor tending to discourage users is the lengthy delays occasioned by customs formalities for rail freight traffic at international frontiers, and recognising that this is largely due to the overloading of existing customs resources at such frontier crossing points;

3. Equally recognising that a real improvement in the present situation must involve action and possibly further expense on the part of those national ministries on which customs administrations depend, but nevertheless aware of the vital need for such improvements in the public interest generally, and not least with a view to reducing the overall burden at present falling on national exchequers as a result of the losses being incurred by the railways,

4. Recommends that the Committee of Ministers invite the governments of the member States to study, both individually and in the framework of the Customs Cooperation Council, appropriate measures to substantially reduce present customs delays at international rail frontiers, and in so doing to take full account of the potential overall savings which each country could make if rail transport were put on a more viable basis.