New rules aimed at improving the collection of excise duties and improving Member States’ controls on excise revenue have been proposed by the Commission. According to the Commission, the new regulation would facilitate the computerised Excise Movement and Control System (EMCS) introduced in April 2010.

Currently, part of the information exchange between Member States on the movement of excise products (alcohol, tobacco and energy products) is still done manually. Computerising this exchange will make it easier and faster to collect the excise duties that are due, in the Commission's view.

The proposal also clarifies the rights and obligations of Member States in terms of requests they can submit to each other, information they must provide, deadlines to answer requests, and use of standardised forms for these exchanges. The ultimate objective is to ensure that the process for Member States to collect and retrieve excise duties is as smooth and efficient as possible. The draft regulation will be put forward for discussion to the Council and the European Parliament.

For full details see http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/11/1339&format=HTML&aged=1&language=EN&guiLanguage=fr