New EC Regulation 859/2011 on Cargo Security

September 9, 2011

The new EU rules EC 859/2011 regarding security measures on cargo coming from  non-EU countries has now been published in the Official Journal and will apply as of 1 February 2012 (attached is the public part of the regulation, the restricted part is sent only to Member States).

This amends the EC 185/2010 laying down detailed measures for the implementation of the common basic standards on aviation security in respect of air cargo and mail (also attached for your reference).

The main elements of these new rules are the following:

1. Any carrier carrying cargo or mail from a non-EU country into the EU will have to be designated as Air Cargo or Mail Carrier operating in the Union from a Third country airport (ACC3). The ACC3 designation is airport specific but recognized by all EU Member States this however implies that carriers will have to seek ACC3 designation for each of their stations outside
the EU and for each station receive a different identification number. A list of 14 countries had been exempted from this requirement (including US).    

2. ACC3 will have to ensure that their security programme integrates EU requirements (in attachment 6-G), submit a declaration of commitment to the appropriate authority and nominate a person responsible.    

3. All cargo carried by ACC3 shall be screened or security controlled (by a RA, KC or AC) and their security status shall be indicated in accompanying documentation.

4. By 1 July 2014, ACC3 shall proceed to an independent verification of their cargo operations at the airport for which it has been designated. The report of the independent validator has to be submitted to the appropriate authority. If the report is satisfactory, the ACC3 will be entered in the EU database for RA and KC.

5. By 1 July 2014, ACC3 shall ensure that RA, KC, AC from which it accepts shipments are independently validated. After this validation, airlines must maintain their own database with the details of RA, KC and AC they are accepting cargo from. Before this date, airlines will have to detail in their security programme the security controls implemented by RA, KC and AC and their
own procedure of recognition in third countries. The regulation includes additional security measures for High Risk Cargo, defined as cargo originating from some specific countries (list of 10 countries so far), or cargo subject to significant tampering.

These new EU rules pose a real challenge of implementation for the airlines carrying cargo into the EU because airline will have to:

1. Submit security programmes for each station they are operating from, 

2. Validate themselves the RA, KC, AC they are working with (at least until 2014), 

3. Maintain a database for the validated RA, KC and AC in third countries, and 

4. Deploy enhanced screening capabilities at their non-EU stations.

The Commission will now convene a working group to work on the details of the implementation of these new rules and IATA will also participate.

The new regulation will be reviewed and discussed by the Cargo Security Task Force (CSTF). This will also be a key item of discussion during the forthcoming IATA Cargo and Mail Supply Chain Security information session on 25-26 October 2011
in Geneva with the participation of EC representatives.

In the mean time, if you have any questions or comments, please send them to IATA Cargo at cargo@iata.org.