Since its adoption in 2007, the United States legislation mandating the scanning at foreign ports of all US bound maritime containers has triggered an international debate and drawn strong reservations from the business community, national governments and security specialists worldwide. In order to contribute further to the debate the European Commission has carried out an assessment of the potential impact of the 100% scanning requirement on European trade, transport and customs security. Implementing 100% scanning would require sizable investments, increase transport costs significantly and entail massive operational losses. More importantly, such burdens to port authorities, companies and ultimately consumers worldwide would be for no proven security benefit. The European Commission will be implementing a coherent security policy based on multi-layered risk management that allows for legitimate international trade to flow smoothly. They will bring together numerous domestic measures to assess and defuse risks; and will seek to strengthen the capacity to deter attacks by coupling domestic action with enhanced international cooperation. The promotion of world-wide security standards, information exchange and mutual recognition of reliable traders are at the core of international cooperation. Read the full response from the European Commission.
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