On invitation of the Head of the National Revenue Administration of Poland, Mrs Magdalena Rzeczkowska, representatives of customs administrations of 11 CELBET Member States and representatives of the European Commission participated in a virtual Steerin Committee meeting on Wednesday 25 November.
Due to the pandemic restrictions, the meeting of the CELBET Steering Committee was held for the first time in the form of a virtual meeting. Meeting was hosted by
The head of Polish Revenue Administration, opening the meeting, emphasized the importance of the CELBET in the context of exchanging valuable and practical experiences. She also recalled one of the functions of CELBET, which is support in the alignment of control standards on the EU land external border.
Mr Kristof Bakai, Deputy of the Head of National Tax and Customs Administration of Hungary, emphasized that CELBET’s activities are performed in a key area for customs services – operational.
Mr Rivo Reitmann, deputy head of the Tax and Customs Board of Estonia, emphasized that the effects of CELBET’s work are measurable and visible, and that each of the CELBET Member State benefited in various fields of duties. In his opinion, these solutions could be implemented in the rest EU Member States.
The virtual meeting was attended by representatives of customs administrations of all CELBET Member states: Poland, Slovakia, Estonia, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and the European Commission (TAXUD) and agency Frontex.
The main topics of the meeting were: practical examples of the impact CELBET has had on the customs administration in their country since its beginning in 2016, the analysis of the needs and objectives for the future of the project, summary of CELBET activities in 2020 and future activities
The meeting was chaired by Mr. Mariusz Koter from the Department of Organization and International Cooperation of the Ministry of Finance, who is the head of the CELBET Feasibility team.
