The current and future infrastructure to satisfy the changing needs of citizens in the EU will grant access to wider postal stakeholders, including customers, postal suppliers, supply chain service providers, (i.e. customs, fiscal authorities collecting VAT and related duties, transport providers like airlines or rail road and other transport mode operators, non-profit organisations supporting supply chain traceability, etc.) non-designated economic postal operators (Courier-, Express-, and Parcel delivery operators) that use, or may wish to use products, services and solutions currently restricted to designated operators.

This document aims at the provision of a Single Digital Market in Europe is at the focus within CEN, in particular:

1. maintaining the integrity and independence of the European and worldwide delivery network

2. no unfair advantage to any group or individual player, and thereby providing a level playing field

3. clear delineation of the responsibilities and roles of all entities involved

4. transparent management, control and integration of the postal supply chain as legally described in EU legislation (EU Regulation 2018/644 on cross-border parcel delivery services)

5. reciprocity of interconnection with other stakeholder networks, as applicable

6. proper security mechanisms in place to ensure data protection and privacy

to provide the necessary implementation guidance of EAD for fiscal duties (VAT et al.), customs and transport security.

The current MoU between the UPU and CEN offers the foundation to convert UPU specifications only applicable to designated postal operators into open CEN specifications. The creation of a digital single market has significant implications on cross border commerce and related delivery of merchandise.

This document provides the necessary implementation guidance. It is based on be the technical report “Postal Services — Electronic advanced data (EAD) in postal operations compliant to security and customs requirements”.

The document is based on the semantic mapping description of information on the characteristics or attributes of Low Value Consignments (LVC) which parties in the digital commercial value chain across-borders are called upon to handle, compliant to the EU VAT Ecommerce Package as well as the UPU-WCO customs model. It gives guidance by defining the use of unique transport identifiers, unique transaction identifiers and the IOSS VAT Identification number.