Common transit procedure: legal foundations and basic principles

The article examines the legal foundations and principles of customs regulation of common transit in the context of Ukraine’s European integration processes. The relevance of the study is due to Ukraine’s accession to the Convention on the simplification of formalities in trade in goods and the Convention on the common transit procedure of May 20, 1987, which requires rethinking the legal foundations of customs regulation and the introduction of unified principles for the implementation of customs procedures in accordance with the standards of the European Union. The purpose of the study is to clarify the conceptual and categorical apparatus of the legal foundations and principles of customs regulation of common transit in Ukraine and the EU, as well as to determine the advantages of implementing the common transit procedure for the development of Ukraine’s foreign economic activity. The approaches of domestic scientists to the terminology of European integration processes in the customs sphere are analyzed, and the expediency of using the term «harmonization of legislation» instead of «adaptation» is substantiated. The peculiarities of the sources of European and national law were studied, and differences in the types and functions of regulatory legal acts in these legal systems were identified. It was established that since October 1, 2022, the NCTS electronic transit system has been operating in Ukraine, which provides for the exchange of customs information with 35 countries in real time, the use of a single customs declaration and the introduction of special transit simplifications. Over the two years of the system’s operation, about 120 thousand declarations have been issued, 137 general and about 10 thousand individual guarantees have been registered for the amount of about 450 million euros. The author’s definition of the legal foundations of customs legislation in the implementation of common transit processes has been formulated as a set of legal norms and principles that regulate the common transit process, establishing the rules for its conduct, the rights and obligations of participants. The principles of customs legislation in this area are defined as unified institutional guiding ideas that ensure the implementation of general customs control, the declaration process and control over the completion of the common transit regime. It is substantiated that the harmonization of national customs legislation with EU legal standards is a key task of the Ukrainian state administration on the way to full membership in the European Union and a necessary condition for optimizing international trade.