The ICS is systems architecture developed by the Community for the lodging and processing of ENS, and for the exchange of messages between national customs administrations and between them and economic operators and with the European Commission. In certain circumstances in accordance with Article 183a CCIP the NCTS can be used instead for lodging the ENS.

ICS is made up of three “domains”:

• The “common domain” for exchanges between the EU Member States and the European Commission;
• The “national domain” made up of the national customs computer systems and the associated risk management processes; and
• The “external domain” being the interface between economic operators and the national customs administrations for the lodging of ENS, issuance of MRNs as receipt for the ENS filing, any Do Not Load (DNL) messages etc.

It is through this latter “domain” that the ENS must be filed according to nationally  determined technical specifications, message formats and structures etc.

A website per se has not been created. However, the European Commission has provided the Trade Contact Group (TCG) with a summary of the individual Member States’ message formats and structures, communication protocols, connections etc. to be used in their external and national domains.

Also, the European Commission has made available to the TCG a list of the Internet addresses where the national customs administrations will provide the national technical specifications, message implementation guides (MIGs) etc. for their national computer systems, and other updates and news of relevance for ICS and the advance cargo security requirements. A list of the national ICS project managers has also been made available to the TCG.

The European Commission has a webpage regarding the Safety and Security Amendment of the Community Customs Code; it can be accessed at:

http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/ customs/ security_amendment/ general_overview/index_en.htm

No. Each EU Member State is responsible for establishing a test period for the connections in their national computer systems to the economic operators’ computer systems for the lodging of ENS, receipt of MRNs, and any DNL messages etc.

See reply to Q7.2.

A single pan-European repository for the lodging of ENS does not exist.Instead, the ENS must be lodged electronically to the customs office of first entry in accordance with the national technical specifications, formats, connections etc. established by the individual EU Member States. Consequently, ocean carriers would need to establish the necessary IT interfaces with those national customs administrations that will be acting as the customs office of first port of entry on their vessel rotations to which the ENS must be sent no later than 24 hours before vessel loading (deep sea containerised shipments) or 4 hours before arrival for other deep sea maritime sectors; for all short sea shipping sectors the time limit is 2 hours before arrival.

Presentation of goods and the release of goods are national customs matters pursuant to national customs legislation. These activities are not covered by ICS-Phase 1. Nor are lodging of manifests and arrival notifications covered by ICS-Phase 1; also these activities will be pursuant to national customs legislation.