Maintenance of supplier’s declarations for the Regional Convention (PEM)

The reform of the Regional Convention is currently creating more and more ambiguity in preferential law. Particular care is required if you maintain supplier’s declarations for agreements in the pan-Euro-Med cumulation zone.

Short overview of the reform

With Resolution 1/2023 of December 7, 2023, the rules and regulations of the Regional Convention were to be completely replaced by a new set of rules from January 1, 2025. However, on December 12, 2024, the previous set of rules was extended for an additional year as an alternative by Resolution 1/2024 of the Joint Committee of the Regional Convention. However, this resolution requires national ratification, which is why it had not yet been implemented by all states by January 1, 2025.

In Origin & Preferences, the agreements with Albania and Montenegro for the EU and CH jurisdictions were therefore converted to the revised rules of the Regional Convention as of January 1, 2025. The conversion for the agreements with Jordan and Ukraine had to follow in February 2025. This step cannot be reversed, even if ratification takes place at a later date and the old rules are applicable again. You can read more about this in the Help Center under Pan-Euro-Mediterranean (PEM): Change at the start of 2025.

Possible variants for the maintenance of supplier’s declarations

• Supplier’s declarations without remarks
  
  These are interpreted as calculated according to the old rules of the Regional Convention and may be adopted as confirmed agreements for all listed agreements that have not been converted in Origin & Preferences.
  Agreements that have been converted in Origin & Preferences can be recognized by the addition in brackets (RR) in the “Agreements” pop-up when maintaining the “Confirmed agreements” field. Special regulations apply to these, as the permeability of the old rules to the new rules only applies in simplified form to goods from Chapter 25-97 of the Harmonized System and, according to the previous application of the law, only to supplier’s declarations on which “no cumulation applied” was confirmed. This will be easier in the future. The EU Commission is currently revising the legal provisions for the maintenance of supplier’s declarations in the Union Customs Code (UCC).  
  
  Practical implications: Only maintain supplier’s declarations for countries with converted agreements if they confirm “no cumulation applied” and the items are goods of chapters 25-97 of the Harmonized System. 
  
  
• Supplier’s declarations with remark for confirmed transitional rules
  Agreements for which the transitional rules have been confirmed may continue to be used for cumulation with the revised rules.  
  
  Practical implications: Maintain these supplier’s declarations only for agreements outside the PEM zone (e.g. Canada, Japan, or Chile) and the agreements that have already been converted, which are displayed with added (RR) in the “Agreements” pop-up under “Confirmed agreements”.
  
  
• Supplier’s declarations with “REVISED RULES” remark
  Agreements for which the “REVISED RULES” remark has been confirmed may only be used for cumulation with the revised rules. Therefore, check whether the remark applies to all potential countries in the PEM zone or only to individual countries. This is often evident from footnotes or similar indicators.
  
  Practical implications: Maintain these supplier’s declarations as usual for the agreements outside the PEM zone (e.g. Canada, Japan, or Chile) and for the agreements already converted in Origin & Preferences. These can be recognized by the added (RR) in the “Agreements” pop-up under “Confirmed agreements”.  
  Agreements from the PEM area that have been issued on this declaration according to the old rules – you can recognize this by the different remarks – can also be maintained as confirmed agreements.