A Belgian economic organization believes that Belgium is faced with a “tsunami” of small packages sent by the major players in Chinese e-commerce and must absolutely push the European Union to accelerate its customs reform, in a notice obtained Thursday by AFP.
The EU has been working for two years on a customs reform which plans to better control the entry into its territory of non -compliant or deemed dangerous goods, against the background of considerable increase in online trade.
It is also a question of removing the exemption from customs duties from which the numerous shipments of value not exceeding 150 euros.
However, according to the Belgian Central Council of the Economy (CCE), which acts as a whistleblower on socio-economic priorities, these so-called low value parcels reached three million in daily rhythm in 2024 in Belgium, a tripling over a year.
“This is an explosive increase and these packages come mainly from China (Alibaba, Shein, Temu, Tiktok …)”, notes the CCE.
“This parcel tsunami that overwhelms our country cannot absolutely be controlled properly with the current means available to customs services and other competent inspection services of the Ministry of Economy,” it is underlined.
The organization calls on the Belgian government to strengthen the means of its customs services, but also to “take the initiative” and to convince the other EU countries of the urgency of better control of imports resulting from e-commerce.
Among the tracks envisaged at European level is the establishment of a contribution of 2 euros per small imported package.
“I support this proposal without reservation (…) We can even go further in this amount,” said Belgian Minister of the Economy, David Clarinval, interviewed Thursday afternoon by deputies in the House.
He estimated the number of parcels that passed through Belgium in 2024.
With Antwerp, Belgium hosts the second port of goods in Europe after that of Rotterdam (Netherlands). Liège Airport (EST) is also a major air freight platform from China.
The Central Council of the Economy is concerned about unfair competition to the detriment of European economic players, as well as the consequences in terms of health health and environmental impact.
“Many products are consumed while they do not comply with the market, that they are dangerous for health, that they are certainly not reusable and most of the time non-recyclable,” he explains. “Many of these products should in fact be directly destroyed by customs when they arrived in our country.”
In total, the number of customs declarations of parcels linked to e-commerce increased from 1,600 per day in 2017, to 4 million last year (including 3 million low value), still according to the Belgian organization.
As for the future legislation wanted in the EU, the twenty-seven agreed in late June to begin negotiations with the European Parliament.
