The TRACES instruction booklet for EU imports under new EU 880 law. Cultural Property News thanks Ivan Macquisten, Adviser to the International Association of Dealers in Ancient Art (IADAA) and the Antiquities Dealers Association (ADA) for sharing this contribution.
NEW GUIDANCE FOR EU’S 2019/880 LAW MAKES A MOCKERY OF EUROPEAN COMMISSION PRESIDENT URSULA VON DER LEYDEN’S MISSION STATEMENT ON POLICY AND LAW-MAKING
A document just released by the European Commission casts light on how importers should comply with the new import licensing regulation (2019/880).
At 102 pages long and made available via the Dutch authorities, TRACES NT ICG Guide for Importers is modeled on the system used to manage and track the movement of animals, animal products and feed as it enters and circulates the European Union.
Its five chapters, subdivided into numerous headings, cover everything from an introduction to the system, generic operations, the license and statement application processes and subsequent requirements.
It is accompanied on the same web page by another 39-page document exploring how to create an EU login account, which will allow the importer to register with the ICG electronic system essential to making any applications. Again, this is set out in minute detail.
Firms from outside the EU – for example in the UK or USA – hoping to stand at fairs or otherwise import items to the EU for display or sale must set up a legally registered business address within the EU first. Only then will they be able to secure an EU EORI number and register with the ICG, giving them access to the necessary permissions.
By registering in this way, they submit themselves to the prerequisite oversight/jurisdiction of the EU authorities, giving the EU the power to prosecute them in the event of a breach of the regulation. How many foreign entities prepared to submit themselves to this process and oversight remains uncertain.
While it will only be necessary to register with the ICG once, the extent and complex nature of these two TRACES documents present a very significant barrier to compliance, even for the expert or initiated. What ordinary citizens faced with tackling their contents will think can only be guessed at, but neither document could be described as ‘user-friendly’. The implications for cross-border trade of cultural property with the EU appear grim.
This approach also appears to contradict the European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen’s guidelines on policy making. Her initial instructions to Commissioners-designate in 2019 stipulated that “we must send a clear signal to citizens that our policies and proposals deliver and make life easier for people and for businesses.”
She followed these up on her re-election in July 2024, with another Mission letter to Commissioners-designate in September, repeating her orders on how policy and new regulation should work: “New legislation must ensure that our rules are simpler, more accessible to citizens and more targeted…”.
Again, she stressed the importance of evidence and proportionality.
It is difficult to see how the new import regulation and the fresh guidance published follow these instructions at all.
“Forcing overseas companies to submit themselves to EU jurisdiction while exposing them unreasonably to the risk of criminal prosecution, as the import licensing regulation does, is not a proportionate way forward,” said Vincent Geerling, chairman of IADAA (International Association of Dealers in Ancient Art).
“These new documents show that private citizens in the EU also face a cliff face of compliance just to import their own belongings.
“When you consider that the stated purpose of the law, to prevent terrorism financing, could not be justified by the EU’s own official research into the subject, this punishing level of sanction is not just undemocratic in its reversal of the burden of proof, it is also significantly detrimental to human rights under the European Convention of Human Rights.
“It effectively makes a mockery of the European Commission President’s clear, detailed and effective instructions on policy making.”
• For further analysis of what the new regulation means, read Cultural Property News’ latest articles: Slamming the Door on EU Art Imports: Part 1 Legal & Economic Challenges of Regulation 2019/880 and Slamming the Door on EU Art Imports: Part 2 How “Terrorism” Incentivized EU Legislative Overreach.
