Some 64 organizations have issued a joint statement to ask the European Union to close loopholes in its legislation that foreign e-commerce platforms and vendors are, they say, exploiting to avoid meeting EU standards.
Apparently, the US tariff policy of President Donald Trump has induced many foreign vendors to withdraw their attention from the US and swing it instead to the EU, where – say the organizations – they have flooded search-engine results with advertisements and customs departments with small-parcel imports, many containing sub-standard products.
A small parcel here is one valued at €150 or less. There is a proposal in the EU to abolish this customs exemption.
From 1930 to Aug. 29 of this year, when President Trump abolished it by Executive Order, the US had its own customs-duty exemption, the “de minimis” rule, for small parcels. There, however, the most recent maximum value for a qualifying parcel was $800.
According to the complaining NGOs and retail, wholesale and other industry associations, all existing EU legislation – the Digital Services Act (DSA), the General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR), the Green Deal – contains these loopholes. They are therefore demanding that the EU:
- Ensure that every product sold in the EU has an economic operator established in the EU
- Recognize online marketplaces as the economic operator when the foreign vendor proves unreachable
- Increase marketplace obligations (e.g., paperwork, traceability, labeling, extended producer responsibility (EPR))
- Make product and sellers more traceable (digital product passport, database interoperability, DSA)
- Tighten customs on small parcels (“deemed importer” concept)
- Enforce existing EU rules (new EU-level enforcement body)
