The challenge

The European Union faced significant challenges with its customs computer systems over the years. Starting with the single market facilitation and borderless trade initiative between its member states, an efficient distributed system had to be designed to support this vision.

With the surge in online buying and selling, the customs systems across its Member States urgently needed updates to handle this new wave of activity. Moreover, growing concerns about safety due to risks like smuggling and terrorism highlighted the need for stronger and more secure systems at the EU’s borders.

The initiative to make the EU’s 27 customs administrations “act as one” faced more challenges due to the diverse nature of existing systems across member states. This diversity made harmonizing procedures a complex task, despite the establishment of EU customs regulations and the UCC law designed to unify these processes. Aligning these varied systems with the unified regulations, while ensuring they were efficient and up to date, became a priority.

The rapid advancement of technologies like artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and blockchain added another dimension. These technologies necessitated customs systems to be not only faster and more sophisticated but also user-friendly and easier to manage.

It became clear that something was needed to maintain a comprehensive, up-to-date design and a continuous upgrade and improvement of the EU’s customs computer systems, to ensure they are harmonized, secure and always prepared for future advancements.

The solution

The European Commission initiated the electronic customs project with two objectives in mind: To enhance the security at the EU’s external borders and to facilitate trade. Netcompany-Intrasoft has been the leader of consortia aiming to support the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Taxation and Customs Union’s (DG TAXUD) directive to harmonize and modernize the customs and taxation policies and procedures across the EU member states.

With the beginning of the New Computerized Transit System (NCTS) in 1997, the successful completion of the CUSTDEV3 project and the recent initiation of the SOFTDEV project in 2021, Netcompany-Intrasoft has been supporting DG TAXUD in the specification, development, maintenance, and support of customs IT systems. The scope of services of these framework contracts aim to address the challenges of modernizing and harmonizing the customs IT systems across the EU, ensuring interoperability and compliance with EU legislation and enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of customs operations.

Netcompany-Intrasoft has been providing a series of comprehensive integrated solution designs with the primary objective to lay the grounds of customs and taxation information systems interoperability specifically tailored for DG TAXUD. The designs had to respect a disparity of data formats, standards and protocols, data protection and privacy laws, as well as business processes prevalent among the participating countries.

Recognizing the crucial role of consistency, Netcompany-Intrasoft activities within its project portfolio for DG TAXUD, have been paying and continue to pay special attention to quality assurance and control. The goal is for the developed systems to be both reliable and compliant with strict security and performance requirements.

Understanding the importance of user-friendliness and stakeholder engagement, training, documentation, and knowledge transfer activities are rolled out on a regular basis. This ensures that DG TAXUD and other relevant stakeholders can smoothly use and operate the systems, promoting seamless integration into their daily operations. Through innovation, research, and analysis activities, Netcompany-Intrasoft consultants delve into exploring cutting-edge technologies, methodologies, and solutions, ensuring that the systems are always future proof, while in full and precise alignment with DG TAXUD’s specifications and requirements.

The results

Netcompany-Intrasoft has delivered to DG TAXUD over 100 software releases catering to various customs and taxation systems, spanning from new and revolutionary ideas to routine maintenance tasks, a fact that showcases not only the DG TAXUD project portfolio’s vast scope but also Netcompany-Intrasoft’s commitment to its customers.

Additionally, with the new SOFTDEV project, Netcompany-Intrasoft will play a pivotal role in both assisting DG TAXUD with the transition to the Agile software development and in modernizing its development toolsets, incorporating industry-leading tools. The project will allow a more fluid and adaptive approach to implementing the intricate legal and regulatory frameworks of the EU, such as the Union Customs Code, the VAT e-commerce package, the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism and others.

In the realm of customs and taxation information systems, Netcompany-Intrasoft project portfolio for DG TAXUD has been instrumental in enhancing and modernising integral systems. Notable mentions in this domain include systems like NCTS, ICS2, EMCS, AES, CCI etc.

Recognizing the importance of capacity building, Netcompany-Intrasoft made concerted efforts in the areas of training, documentation, and knowledge transfer, geared towards empowering DG TAXUD and other stakeholders to efficiently use and operate the upgraded systems.

Netcompany-Intrasoft’s project portfolio for DG TAXUD has made momentous strides in enhancing the European Union’s customs and taxation information systems and has critically bolstered the efficiency, effectiveness, and interoperability of EU customs computer systems. Such enhancements are not merely technological achievements but play a pivotal role in the establishment of seamless functioning of the EU internal market and the robust protection of its borders.