Cheap Chinese goods flood Europe. Instead of draconian fees, there is a row in the EU

• More than 4 billion parcels worth up to €150 entered the European Union from China last year .
• Although these parcels are not subject to customs duties at the moment (only VAT is charged on them), they are subject to detailed checks at the border. Customs officers tell us that they have a lot of work to do with them.
• In May, Donald Trump imposed a special handling fee of $100 plus duty on every package from China.
• The European Commission proposes that it should be €2.50 per parcel up to a value of €150. The fee would come into effect by 2026.
• However, according to Deputy Minister of Digital Affairs Dariusz Standerski, this is a very unlikely scenario. The EU countries have split and the negotiations have reached a dead end.

What took President Donald Trump a moment to do, i.e. to introduce from May this year a handling fee of $100 for each parcel sent from China - regardless of its value (until May, parcels up to $120 were exempt from all fees in the USA - ed.), may take EU commissioners many months or even years - according to information provided on Tuesday (7 July) at the Sejm's Innovation and Modern Technologies Committee by Deputy Minister of Digital Affairs Dariusz Standerski (New Left).

A quarrel in the EU over parcel value limits and who will get the new fee

As Deputy Minister Standerski informed the committee, which was devoted to "ensuring conditions for fair competition and equal opportunities in the e-commerce market ", the scenario assumed by the European Commission, that the new handling fee would enter into force as early as January 2026, is unlikely.

The EU countries are divided, negotiations are not moving forward. The bone of contention is said to be, among other things , the limit value of parcels that would be exempt from fees and customs duties and the amount of the fee.

Currently, for countries outside the European Union, parcels worth 150 euros are not subject to customs duty .

EU countries are also arguing about who would benefit financially from the new handling fee: the central EU budget or the budgets of the member states? Each side wants to get the most for itself.

Currently, customs duties collected at the borders of EU countries are transferred to the common budget in Brussels, and then a certain part of it - in the case of Poland it is 20 percent - is returned to the member states.

As Standerski explained, during the six-month Polish presidency that has just ended – as the host of the meetings – we could not actively submit motions regarding fees for parcels from China like other countries. Now, however, Poland is to actively participate in this process.

As Standerski admitted, the pace of negotiations conducted in the EU is extremely slow, which - as he himself admitted - may be surprising considering that the largest Chinese e-commerce platforms such as Shein, AliExpress and Temu, have proceedings before the European Commission regarding serious infringements of regulations.

Such proceedings – as Standerski admitted – are also underway in several countries, including France, Poland and Hungary .

As WNP has established, in the case of the Temu platform alone, the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK) is already conducting several cases , including those concerning information presented on the website, including dark patterns and published opinions, as well as two proceedings in which charges have already been brought .

"The first concerns unclear information about who sells on the platform and the labeling of the button used to place an order with an obligation to pay. The second concerns a breach of the obligation to inform about the lowest price from 30 days before the discount or to provide it at an incorrect amount," informs UOKiK.

The Irish company Whaleco Technology Limited with its registered office in Dublin is responsible for the sale of Temu in Poland. This platform is threatened by the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection with a fine of up to 10% of its turnover for each of the charges .

The EU investigation against Tem, in turn, focuses on issues such as the sale of illegal products, as well as recommendation systems and illegal access to customer data.

A few days ago, the Commission called on Temu to comply with EU consumer protection rules, citing reports of, among other things, false discounts , high-pressure selling and hidden contact details.

Fraud, unfair competition and too low fees

The president of the Chamber of Electronic Economy , Paweł Lewandowski, who participated in Tuesday's commission, did not mince his words and said that Chinese e-commerce platforms not only deliberately mislead consumers, but are also subsidized by the communist authorities in Beijing , thanks to which they can unfairly compete with European companies, lowering the prices not only of the goods themselves, but also of logistics and transport.

According to Lewandowski, the handling fee of €2 per parcel up to a value of €150 (if delivered directly to the consumer) and €0.5 (if sent to a warehouse) proposed by the EU Commissioner for Trade and Economic Security, Maroš Šefčovič , is too low and Poland should not agree to it, especially since, following Trump's decision to impose draconian fees on parcels, a flood of them can now be expected in Europe.

As mentioned above, according to EU regulations, for shipments up to 150 euros, customs duty is currently not charged in the EU, but VAT is still charged on them . Only gifts from individuals to individuals up to 45 euros are exempt from import duties and VAT.

However, for parcels with a value higher than the declared 150 euros, it is necessary to pay both customs duties and VAT.

Customs and Revenue Service officers who clear Chinese shipments told us that they have a lot of work with packages from China. Because they are exempt from customs, they are subject to detailed verification.

According to EU statistics, last year alone, over 4 billion low-value parcels entered Europe from China alone, which is over 140 parcels per second ...

Customs officers have a lot of work with so-called small cargo. You get nothing from it, and neither do you.

Poland, after Germany and France, is one of the leaders in Europe in terms of the number of goods purchased on Chinese e-platforms.

- All shipments from China are subject to 100% customs control by Customs and Fiscal Service officers in terms of: compliance of the declared goods with the invoice, compliance of the declared value with the type of goods, compliance with safety requirements, delivery conditions specified on the invoice - transport costs - insurance - enumerates the chairwoman of the Customs Officers Trade Union of Poland, Jolanta Haron, in an interview with WNP.

Controversial agreement with Temu. Polish Post explains

During the committee meeting, President Lewandowski and the chairman of the parliamentary committee on digitalisation, MP Bartłomiej Pejo (Confederation), also drew attention to the agreement recently concluded by Poczta Polska with the Chinese platform Temu.

MP Pejo informed that he submitted a parliamentary interpellation on this matter two weeks ago to the Ministry of State Assets (MAP), which supervises the company on behalf of the State Treasury, requesting clarification on the matter, but he has not received a response to date.

In turn, Poczta Polska responded to our questions regarding this agreement with a statement published on its website.

We read there, among other things, that "Poczta Polska conducts its activity on the commercial market of courier services/CEP and operates in an environment of strong competition - both from domestic and international logistics entities".

"The cooperation with the Temu platform is of an operational nature and concerns only the implementation of the last stage of delivery of parcels purchased by consumers - in accordance with their individual purchasing decisions. It should also be emphasized that the Temu platform is already supported by all the major players on the CEP market."

It was emphasized that Poczta does not promote the Temu platform , complies with applicable legal provisions, including environmental, ethical and social standards, and "services to Temu are limited only to the delivery of parcels in accordance with applicable law."

The post office, which is undergoing restructuring but also financial collapse, emphasizes that in February alone, the Temu platform was visited by 18 million Poles...

Dispute over fees and the construction of the European Customs Union. Now the Danes have taken over

We also asked the Ministry of Finance (MF) about its position on customs duties, handling fees and the number of parcels sent to Poland from China.

In extensive answers to our questions, the Ministry of Finance explains, among other things, that customs and tax rates depend on the tariff classification of goods imported from a non-EU country.

An exception are postal shipments between private individuals with a value above EUR 150 and below EUR 700, for which a flat-rate customs duty of 2.5 percent of the ad valorem value may be applied.

"If anti-dumping or countervailing duties are imposed on a given product, they are also due, regardless of the method of transport (parcel transported by a courier company or a designated operator, which in Poland is Poczta Polska SA)" - we read in a press release of the Ministry of Finance.

As regards the handling fee, the European Commission has proposed the introduction of a handling fee (which we mentioned earlier in the text), collected by the customs authorities of the Member States in order to cover the increased supervision costs incurred by these authorities.

"The provisions on the EU handling fee have also been introduced into the draft of the new EU Customs Code, which will be the subject of further legislative work during the Danish presidency," the Ministry of Finance notes.

The Ministry adds that, in accordance with the provisions proposed in the draft of the new EU Customs Code, the EU handling fee would be set at a fixed amount and would be charged for services provided for the purpose of admitting goods subject to distance selling into the EU.

"The amount of the EU handling fee is to be determined by the European Commission. The Commission is also yet to determine the procedure for collecting the fee in relation to imported goods," admits the Ministry of Finance.

It was added that this fee would be lower for goods purchased via electronic platforms that are released for circulation using a customs warehouse for distance selling (a new institution to be introduced by the new EU Customs Code).

Moreover, as the Ministry of Finance points out, in accordance with the current wording of the draft of the new EU Customs Code, the revenues from the EU handling fee should be made available to the Union and the Member States .

If, during the negotiations on this regulation, the introduction of this fee is adopted at the next stage, it will also be necessary to introduce provisions that will regulate the distribution of revenues from this fee in more detail.

According to data sent to us by the Ministry of Finance, last year 4.49 million declarations were filed concerning shipments from third countries worth no more than EUR 150. They included 13.49 million items not subject to customs duty .