Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/448 of March 1, 2023 amending Implementing Regulation (EU) 2018/574 on technical standards for the establishment and operation of tobacco product traceability systems enters into force on December 21, 2023 and proposes some of the most significant changes in operation definitions since the beginning of the systems operational application.
Following the changes defined by Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/448, the secondary repository service provider published a new version of technical specifications for all system participants on September 21, 2023.
AKD the competent TPD ID issuer of unique identification codes in the Republic of Croatia for tobacco products that are placed on the market in the Republic of Croatia, will publish its new version of the API integration manual by October 6, 2023, and will publish them on the documents repository in the test system environment intended for the distribution of technical integration documentation:
- https://idissuertest.akd.hr/documents .
According to announcements by the secondary repository service provider, technical changes to the test QA environment will be available from October 21, 2023. AKD will publish its API integration upgrades latest October 28, 2023 after internal testing of the upgraded functionalities with the secondary repository. Following this release all participants of the traceability of tobacco products on the market of the Republic of Croatia will to be able to test the implemented upgrades.
Changes to the AKD production environment of TPD system for issuing unique identification codes will be available from December 21, 2023 in accordance with the provisions of Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/448 and available technical upgrades of the secondary repository.
More about Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/448
The implementing regulation of the Commission (EU) 2018/574 lays down the rules for the establishment and operation of the tobacco product traceability system. The aim of the traceability system is to provide Member States and the Commission with an effective means of tracking the tobacco products across the Union and detecting fraudulent activities that lead to illegal products being offered to consumers by collecting data on the movement of tobacco products and transaction data.
The traceability system started its operational phase on May 20, 2019. The experience gained during its application further confirmed the importance of high quality, accuracy, completeness and comparability of data that must be recorded and transferred to the system in a timely manner. In its report on the application of Directive 2014/40/EU of 20 May 2021, the Commission pointed out that Member States and the Commission had noticed problems with the quality of traceability data, such as:
- poor data quality on production machines and
- not precise data on the latest movements of products to retail outlets.
A number of exceptions and special cases that appeared after the launch of the traceability system were also observed, which had to be considered in order to ensure the required high quality of collected data, including:
- economic entities that perform exclusively non-logistic trade activities, involvement of non-EU entities in the EU supply chain,
- facilities that combine retail and non-retail functions,
- cases of loss of identification codes,
- cases of return of stolen goods,
- IT incidents that require data reprocessing and
- atypical non-commercial destinations such as laboratories or waste disposal centres.
The full text of the Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/448 of March 1, 2023 was published on the website of the European Commission as well as on the website of AKD, appointed ID Issuer responsible for issuance of unique identification codes in the Republic of Croatia for tobacco products that are placed on Croatian market.
It is important to note that this latest changes in traceability system in the EU aligne the legal framework of tobacco traceability with the Protocol on the elimination of illegal trade in tobacco products from September 25, 2018, which, in addition to the Framework Convention of the World Health Organization on tobacco control, foresees a package of measures that the parties should take to elimination of illegal trade in tobacco products.