European Union (EU) ambassador to the US John Bruton this week added his voice to the growing international concern over a US law requiring all containers destined for that country to be scanned.
In conjunction with a visit to the US port city of Baltimore, Bruton explained that recent US legislation stipulated that by 2012 every container on a ship destined for a US port from Europe or other foreign country must be scanned by imaging equipment. However, he pointed out, the law did not require containers on ships leaving the US going to Europe to be scanned in the same way.
"This is bound to put an unfair burden on European companies and taxpayers who will have to foot the bill for expensive imaging equipment, additional personnel and even rebuilding of ports," he argued.
"Large reconstruction and land acquisition will have to take place at almost all ports to accommodate containers waiting to be scanned. American consumers will also be affected as prices on imports will rise."
In the coming weeks, continued Bruton, the European Commission would issue estimates on the impact which the 100% scanning measure would have on EU ports. "We can already anticipate that for smaller or older ports, the costs will be so high that it may no longer be financially viable for them to continue shipping to the US at all," he stated.
"Clearly, scanning every single container will result in longer shipping times ¨C a fact that has companies on both sides of the Atlantic worried. Unfortunately, backlogs at ports could create an indirect brake on trade.
"The EU shares the objective of having effective protections but we believe a risk-based system is a far more sensible solution. Such a system, followed by European customs, targets containers where there is genuine doubt about the provenance of the contents and thus finds the proper balance between legitimate trade facilitation and customs security."
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