CUSTOMS PROCEDURES IN UKRAINIAN LEGISLATION: THE ISSUES OF CONCEPT, SYSTEM AND EUROPEANIZATION

Abstract

The present paper provides the analyses of the concept of customs procedures, which is adapted in Ukrainian legislation with respect to such issues as conformity with the modern trends in public administration, international standards on trade facilitation and approximation to EU customs rules. The hypothesis is based on conclusions that the history of the modern approach to customs procedures can be traced back to the beginning of 19-th century when the customs has widely adopted a different treatment to goods due to declared purposed for its introduction into the customs territory. Thus the diversity of customs procedures provided different cases for reliefs form customs duties and, respectively, different workflows for a customs clearance of such goods. It is also argued, that different approaches to the terminology, which is used in customs legislation, namely the utilization of terms «customs regime» or «customs procedure» may reflect different understanding of the role and functions of customs authorities towards the border management. In Ukrainian case, the use of term «customs regimes» is caused by post-soviet heritage in the issues of public administration, that is badly comparable with the modern trends of trade facilitation. Thus the adoption of the concept of «customs procedures», which are a specific type of administration procedures, looks very promising, concerning the implementation of obligations of international instruments, such as WTO Trade facilitation agreement. Besides, the «customs procedures» concept is more relevant the current focus of public administration on meeting needs of private actors, whilst protecting public interests. To that end the important role place the internal design of customs procedures, which is also discussed in the paper. Finally, the obligations within Association Agreement between Ukraine and EU towards the approximation of customs legislation appears to be the decisive factor the development of Ukrainian system of customs procedures for the nearest decades. With this respect the paper reviews the main differences between the EU customs procedures and the Ukrainian ones to reveal the possible ways and means of the approximation.