New Customs Checkpoints

In just one day, the checkpoint at the administrative border between Montenegro and Kosovo brought two million dinars to the federal budget, and Serbian market was deprived of 4,500 packages of various foreign cigarettes and 152 musical CDs. Sixteen trailer trucks carrying 200 tons of bananas were stopped because the transporters did not have evidence of customs control. The value of this load amounts to about 200 thousand German marks.

AIM Belgrade, February 16, 2001

As of midnight on February 11, checkpoints of the Federal Customs Administration started work at the administrative border of Serbia with Kosovo and Montenegro. Customs control usually exists at state borders, although control can be carried out on the whole territory of a state. At the present situation, the Federal Customs Administration has no such possibility on the territory of Montenegro and Kosovo. With the pretext that it is protecting itself from Milosevic's regime, the Republican Customs Administration of Montenegro is implementing its own regulations and charges about four times lower customs rate (the federal tariff is 15.46 per cent, and the Montenegrin rate is below 5 per cent), and the collected duties are paid to the Republican budget. It is announced that a law will soon be passed which will regulate this sphere in accordance with the commitment of Montenegro to be an independent and internationally recognised state.

In Kosovo, UNMIK has assumed the role of customs officials. According to the words of Susan Manual, spokeswoman of UNMIK seat in Pristina, customs checkpoints put up at the border of Kosovo with Macedonia and Albania "operate quite well and due to action of UNMIK and KFOR smuggling has significantly been reduced", but there are no customs checkpoints towards Serbia and for the time being there will be none "because the citizens would not be happy if they were forced to pay customs duties twice".

Goods not cleared through the customs can enter the territory of Serbia both from the territory of Montenegro and from the territory of Kosovo. Unpaid taxes and other state duties significantly reduce the budget of the federal state; monthly losses caused by illegal import of cigarettes amount to about three billion dinars, and a single shipload of bananas cleared through the customs in Montenegro reduces the federal budget by 70 million German marks. It should not be neglected either that domestic goods get unfair competition in this way. The intention of the Government of FRY is therefore to do the only possible thing it can do to prevent the obvious problems in turnover of goods across these "borders" - to ensure that at import customs duties are paid according to federal regulations. After that, all goods can be brought into Serbia without any problems, regardless of whether they are coming from Hungary, Romania, Montenegro or Kosovo. The goods to be used by UNMIK and KFOR will be exempt from customs duties if they are accompanied by appropriate documentation.

According to the words of Vladan Begovic, director of the Federal Customs Administration, the only purpose of customs control is "that customs duties be charged pursuant federal regulations and that the money collected be paid to the federal budget".

The support that the Federal Customs Administration got from the authorities in Serbia primarily relies on the promise given to the voters on the eve of September and December elections last year that the economy would be returned to normal flows, that everything would be done to prevent smuggling being the main form of business operation. In just a single day at the administrative border with Montenegro and Kosovo, the control brought the sum of two million dinars to the state budget, and Serbian market was deprived of 4,500 packages of various foreign cigarettes and 152 musical CDs. Sixteen trailer trucks were stopped with 200 tons of bananas because the transporters did not have evidence of clearance through the customs. The value of the load was 200 thousand German marks.

Montenegrin authorities did not approve of the move of the Federal Customs Administration. They mostly link it to the blockades Milosevic's regime used to introduce against Montenegro whenever it saw fit, and interrupted the entire turnover of goods and services as of March 2000. Although immediately after the elections the new authorities abolished the decrees in this sense, Montenegrin Minister of the economy, Vojin Djukanovic characterised the latest decision of the Federal Customs Administration as “a new form of economic pressure exerted on Montenegro on the eve of the elections” and added that “Montenegro will parry by finding new markets, as before”.

Minister of trade of Montenegro, Ramo Bralic declared that “there are many democratic ways - through institutions, primarily the customs administration, public revenue administration and financial inspection for control of goods, other than customs checkpoints”. Director of Montenegrin customs administration, Miodrag Radusinovic, called setting up of checkpoints “the most radical measure”, but estimated that “from the professional aspect it is sustainable if it would adhere to the principle of free flow of goods, respecting the wishes of the exporters and users of goods to clear the goods through the customs and pay taxes in the place they themselves choose”. For the time being only Nebojsa Medojevic, economist from Podgorica, claims that “this is legalisation of the situation created after introduction of the blockade at the time of Milosevic and after the customs control of Montenegro had been taken over by federal administration. All the goods coming from Montenegro which have not been cleared through the customs and for which money has not been paid to the budget in Belgrade should be cleared through the customs; for the goods produced in Montenegro the difference in taxes will be paid like before. In this way the turnover will be legalised and there will be less corruption at the border crossings, less bribery and less evading than so far”. The European Union has granted trading preferences for Yugoslavia on November 23. Although this came into effect two and a half months ago and although it refers to 95 per cent of the goods, Yugoslav enterprises could not use it, because fifteen countries of united Europe demand that Yugoslavia "with a single stamp” certify the needed papers at all border crossings, in other words that Yugoslav origin of the exported goods be guaranteed by a single customs administration, at least for as long as it is not legally decided otherwise. As Montenegro insisted on its own customs seal with which it certifies tariff-free export of aluminum products as of September 18, 2000, based on the acquired political preference in the European Union, EU countries concluded that the Federal Customs Administration does not carry out customs control on the whole territory of FRY, but that there are practically two customs controls in the country.

This fact is contrary to the stand of the fifteen European countries that Yugoslavia is “a single entity”, so that the approved customs preferences simply are not in effect any more. The EU did the only thing it could do: it gave FRY and Montenegro an opportunity to reach an agreement by March 31 on a single customs control and promised that it would return at least half of the paid customs duties to all the Yugoslav exporters who have in the meantime sold their goods on the EU market.

Yugoslav government and the National Bank of Yugoslavia are doing their best to set right some of the observed problems and at the same time meet the requirements set by the EU and rules of the World Trade Organisation. The new customs law which is in preparation will standardise the customs tariff in the whole country and reduce them to the average of five per cent, that is, to the level of Montenegrin one. The National Bank proposed passing of a special law which would temporarily enable payment operations on the territory of FRY in foreign currency with the intention to prevent interruption of trade among subjects on the territory of FRY.

Legal subjects and entrepreneurs from Serbia were obliged to sell the obtained foreign currency to a bank authorised for business operations with foreign subjects. In the meantime Montenegrin authorities promised the Federal Customs Administration that federal customs officials will be enabled to return to five border crossings between Montenegro and Albanian, Croatia and B&H. Whether this means that the authorities in Montenegro are ready to accept the explanation that setting up of nine customs checkpoints is not a political move of Belgrade aimed against Montenegro, nor an attempt to create new state borders as the leaders of Kosovo Serbs have presented it, but just a sign of introducing order in the state, will very soon become clear.

Tatjana Stankovic

(AIM)