MACF: the change in exemption threshold is confirmed
On Friday 23 May, the European Parliament communicated on the massive approval of its Members for one of the Commission's proposals for simplifying the MACF rules: the exemption threshold rises to 50 tonnes of goods per year instead of 150 euros per consignment.
In Our News Review of simplification of the mechanism proposed by the European Commission On 27 March, we presented the details of the European Commission's proposals under the Omnibus Act.
On May 23, a Press release said that MEPs adopted the technical amendments to clarify the text and supported the introduction of a new de minimis mass threshold of 50 tonnes. In other words, companies importing less than 50 tonnes of goods covered by the MACF regulation will be exempt from registration and purchase of certificates to import in 2026. In such cases, these companies will certainly have to notify their Registered Customs Representatives to apply a specific measure on import declarations.
The text was adopted by 564 votes to 20, with 12 abstentions. Parliament is now ready to start negotiations with the Council on the final form of legislation, but obviously this last stage should not be a problem since the change in threshold will not have an impact on the objectives of the regulation. Indeed, the measure will exempt a large majority of importers (90%) but who are actually small and medium-sized enterprises which do not actually have polluting activities and import small quantities of goods.
The environmental objectives of the mechanism will remain achievable, as 99% of total CO2 emissions from imports of iron, steel, aluminum, cement and fertilizer would remain covered by the rules.
With regard to the other points of the Omnibus proposal, such as the process of authorizing registrants, the calculation of emissions, and the management of financial obligations related to the mechanism, all these points still need to be confirmed.