Zagreb – The CEFTA Secretariat and the Transport Community, with support of the Croatian Customs Administration, organised the Green Lanes Steering Committee Meeting, gathering the representatives from all CEFTA and neighbouring EU Member States’ customs administrations, Western Balkans Ministries of Transport, and the European Commission.
The meeting aimed to evaluate the current implementation of the Green Lanes, explore opportunities for improvement, and discuss the Roadmap “Taking forward the EU-CEFTA/Western Balkans Green Lanes” towards fully digitalized pre-arrival information exchange at all major CEFTA-EU crossing points and their infrastructure improvements.
The Green Lanes Steering Committee Meeting underscores the joint commitment to facilitating swift and efficient trade across the CEFTA but also with the EU.
The meeting also enabled an overview of the benefits from the use of the SEED+ system for exchange of pre-arrival information from CEFTA to Croatia, Greece and Italy, as well as discussions on the further extension to the other EU-CEFTA/WB6 crossing points. The support from the CEFTA, Transport Community Secretariats and European Commission was highlighted. Following the conclusions (declaration) from the latest Leaders Summit that took place on February 29th in Tirana, the Green Lanes initiative is fully recognized as a tool for transport and trade facilitation in the region and between the region and EU, in particular regarding the enhanced customs cooperation, risk assessment, AEO, harmonization of working hours, and modernization of the BCP infrastructure, equipment and IT systems, aiming at reducing the formalities and the waiting times for freight.
SEED+ possibilities were presented, together with the current state of play in Green and Blue Lanes’ implementation and Roadmap’s Border Crossing Points (BCPs), while the European Commission shared the possibilities and functionalities of the Single Window Environment for Customs.