The European Commission’s 2026 work programme signals a sharper turn toward digital sovereignty, trade expansion, and simplification. For customs professionals, three levers stand out: a new Cloud & AI Development Act, fresh market-opening trade tracks, and a push to cut administrative burdens (especially for SMEs). Together, they set the stage for faster declarations, richer data [...]
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Introduction International trade runs on information: what an item is, where it came from, who’s shipping it, why it’s moving, and how much it’s worth. For decades, customs clearance sat at the intersection of all this data—often mediated by paper, manual keying, and fragmented systems. That world is changing fast. AI is now embedded across [...]
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Executive summary European customs administrations are under contradictory pressures: stop more fraud and unsafe goods, but release compliant consignments faster. For two decades, the Union Customs Code (UCC) and the EU Customs Risk Management Framework (CRMF) leaned heavily on rules-based targeting. That era isn’t over—but it is being augmented by machine learning (ML) and advanced [...]
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Introduction Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer a peripheral technology in international commerce; it is becoming the connective tissue that ties together supply chains, services trade, border processes, and market access. The World Trade Report 2025 positions AI as a general-purpose technology with economy-wide spillovers that can amplify trade-led growth—provided governments and firms invest in [...]
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Introduction: From Paper Borders to Intelligent, Trust-Based Gateways Customs modernisation has moved from a worthy aspiration to an urgent operational necessity. Trade volumes continue to climb on the back of e-commerce and near-shoring, while geopolitical shocks, sanctions regimes, and stricter product standards multiply the data points a single shipment must carry. The twentieth-century border—paper forms, [...]
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