TIR SAVED FOR THE TIME BEING
31 October 1996
Thirty-eight countries represented at the Working Party on Customs Questions affecting
Transport (WP.30) of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UN/ECE) have
considered at its meeting last week (21-25 October 1996) ways and means to resolve the crisis
of the TIR regime caused by the sudden denunciation of the guarantee by the German hauliers
associations AIST and BDF.
This denunciation had been decided upon by the two German associations because
reimbursement for Customs claims transmitted by these associations to the International Road
Transport Union (IRU) and the international insurers seemed no longer to be guaranteed.
As a consequence, the TIR Customs transit procedure would have collapsed as of 28
October 1996 not only in Germany, but also in all of the 15 countries of the European Union.
International East-West road transport in Europe would have come to a standstill as the TIR
procedure is the only internationally valid Customs transit system applicable in all European
countries from Portugal to Kazakstan and from Norway to Iran.
Following intensive negotiations between the parties concerned, the denunciation of the
guarantee by the two German associations was withdrawn on 25 October 1996.
The withdrawal of the denunciation, however, cannot be regarded as a success in the
sense that many of the underlying reasons having led to this situation are not yet eliminated.
The ECE Working Party (WP.30) is aware of this situation as well as of the fact that, legally
speaking, some of the specific problems that led to the denunciation of the guarantee are, for
the moment, outside its control as they concern the enforcement of private law contracts
between national associations, IRU and the international insurers.
With a view to find long term solutions to these problems, the ECE Working Party
(WP.30) together with the ECE secretariat will further intensify its efforts to complete
negotiations of a revised TIR Convention as soon as possible encompassing better control
possibilities for access to the TIR regime, on-line EDI control procedures for a controlled use of
TIR Carnets and the creation of an international supervisory and control authority (TIR Executive
Board).
The ECE secretariat has already prepared and proposed mechanisms to implement such
measures by early 1997. It is hoped that the more than 60 States which are Contracting Parties
to the TIR Convention as well as the national associations and the IRU will work together
constructively to bring these measures into force by that date.
With a view to make rapid progress in the revision of the TIR Convention, the next
session of the TIR Administrative Committee has already been scheduled by the ECE to be held
on 2 and 3 December 1996 in Geneva (Palais des Nations).