{"id":519905,"date":"2026-06-05T09:58:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T09:58:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/519905\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T09:58:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T09:58:14","slug":"an-post-chief-joins-call-for-eu-to-delay-e3-customs-charge-for-small-parcels-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/519905\/","title":{"rendered":"An Post chief joins call for EU to delay \u20ac3 customs charge for small parcels \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Post<\/a> chief executive David McRedmond<\/a> has joined 19 other postal groups in Europe in calling for a six-month delay to the introduction of a \u20ac3 charge on small parcels from online purchases originating from outside the European Union<\/a>. <\/p>\n

In a letter dated May 29th to European commissioner Maros Sefcovic<\/a>, the chief executives said the July 1st deadline for the changes to the customs regime would have a \u201csevere impact\u201d on SMEs, consumers, postal traffic and the \u201cbroader ecosystem of cross-border ecommerce\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe final legal text will be available only four weeks before the due date of 1st of July, making it impossible for businesses, merchants and operators to be fully compliant,\u201d the letter states. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe therefore request that its implementation be delayed by at least six months to allow sufficient preparation time for all stakeholders.\u201d<\/p>\n

Currently, there is no customs duty on ecommerce packages entering the EU where the goods are valued at \u20ac150 or less. From July 1st, a duty of \u20ac3 for each item in a parcel will apply to goods bought online from non-EU countries, including the UK. <\/p>\n

While the postal chiefs said \u201csignificant progress\u201d had been made on developing a system for the payment of the duty, the transition \u201cdepends heavily\u201d on the readiness of non-EU postal operators, ecommerce platforms and SMEs. <\/p>\n

\"\"David McRedmond: \u2018O\u2019Connell Street needs high density housing\u2019 <\/p>\n

This week, Inside Business host Ciar\u00e1n Hancock is joined in studio by An Post chief executive David McRedmond, who is about to step down after 10 years in charge of the State-owned company.He recently wrote an article for The Irish Times about the explosion in online shopping in this country and how it would impact on bricks and mortar retailers.Last year An Post delivered 75 million parcels to Irish homes.This year he expects that figure to be well north of 100 million parcels. All this in a country of just two million homes.In this episode, you\u2019ll hear David outline how he believes we need to reimagine the streetscape in our towns and cities to reflect this shift.And he gives ideas on what to do with the historic GPO in Dublin, which An Post largely vacated some time back for new offices in the docks.Produced by John Casey with JJ Vernon on sound.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They noted that postal imports represent less than 5 per cent of total import volume from China in most EU member states and that postal operators predominantly serve fragmented, low-value and socially inclusive traffic, including SME exports and consumer-to-consumer exchanges, where there is often no alternative. <\/p>\n

They added that most non-EU postal traffic flows from the UK, Switzerland, Norway and the United States, adding that the new customs levy could create \u201cunintended trade tensions\u201d and have a negative impact on European consumers as \u201cmillions of parcels\u201d would have to be returned. <\/p>\n

The postal operators stressed that a lack of clarity and the short implementation period could result in \u201cdivergent interpretations\u201d in different member states and result in \u201cdistortions within the internal market\u201d. <\/p>\n

In addition to An Post, the letter was signed by the heads of postal operators in Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Italy, Lithuania, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain and Sweden. It was also signed by Tobias Meyer, chief executive of the Germany-based DHL Group<\/a>, one of the world\u2019s largest logistics companies. <\/p>\n

A European Commission<\/a> spokesperson said it was \u201cassessing\u201d the content of the letter but indicated that it was sticking with its deadline. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been in constant contact with stakeholders, including postal operators, on this matter since January. Our timeline remains the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

They also noted that a guidance document was published earlier this week to \u201censure that stakeholders and customs authorities are prepared well in advance\u201d. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Post chief executive David McRedmond has joined 19 other postal groups in Europe in calling for a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":519906,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[73],"tags":[13803,79,52738,224693,18,5766,2219,19,17,12923],"class_list":["post-519905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-an-post","tag-business","tag-david-mcredmond","tag-dhl","tag-eire","tag-european-commission","tag-european-union","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-maros-sefcovic"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116696915495632180","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}