This is not the first adversarial or hostile gesture of the European Commission against China, even if the decision of the Council of the EU doesn’t mention China by name, but rather addresses “small parcels valued at less than €150 entering the EU”; but we all know the targets are TEMU, Shein, AliExpress, and the likes. I never used such platforms, but this is a matter of principle.

Press release on December 12, 2025: Customs: Council agrees to levy customs duty on small parcels as of 1 July 2026:

The Council today agreed to apply a fixed customs duty of €3 on small parcels valued at less than €150 entering the EU, largely via e-commerce, from 1 July 2026.

This temporary measure responds to the fact that such parcels currently enter the EU duty free, leading to unfair competition for EU sellers, health and safety risks for consumers, high levels of fraud and environmental concerns. The measure will stay in place until the permanent arrangement for such parcels, agreed in November 2025, enters into force. The €3 duty will be applied to each different item, according to their tariff headings, contained in a consignment.

As of 1 July 2026, goods entering the EU in small consignments and valued at less than €150 will be subject to a fixed €3 customs duty. The rate will be applied to all goods entering the EU for which non-EU sellers are registered in the EU’s import one-stop shop (IOSS) for value-added tax purposes. This encompasses 93% of all e-commerce flows to the EU.

The measure is distinct from the proposed so-called ‘handling fee’ which is currently under discussion in the context of the customs reform package and the multiannual financial framework.

I am surprised this illegal custom duty isn’t enforced since January 1, 2026, but I suppose they need a vote of the European Parliament and some time for member countries to implement the necessary measures.

I am living in an increasingly shitty Union.

I am not a lawyer, but I’m pretty sure this measure infringes the rules and principles of the International Postal Union, those of the World Trade Organization, and even the EU’s own tariff regulations.

Under the current regulations, parcels or small packages, even envelopes, entering the EU are treated under the following regime:

  • If the value is assessed at less than €150, only VAT is added and collected.
  • If the value is assessed at more than €150, customs duties are also added and collected.

The “good old times”

On July 1, 2021, the EU abolished the “de minimis” regime of €22 for ordinary postal consignments. Since that date, VAT is due on every “commercial” parcel, even a €1 envelope, when it enters the Union.

But how do they know if they should tax with VAT a musical greeting card I might be receiving from Canada? You know, that one that has a button battery, a small chip and a piezoelectric speaker. It might be valued at €5, right? So, what is left of the freedom of postal sendings? Did the EU just kill it mid-2021? (Yes, it did!)

Sure thing, everything is now declarative and based on a CN 22 (postal) or CN 23 (courier) customs label that states the value and a short description. But border agents can slit open any letter-size item (goodbye, constitutional secrecy of correspondence guarantees!), and, if the card plays music, they will look for a battery and IC, then reappraise it. Undervaluation (such as writing “card value €1”) is penalized with an additional fine. Writing “gift” doesn’t help, although postal sendings from private persons to private persons might be granted the gift concession, but only up to €45 and only once per calendar quarter to the same addressee (which means your data will be stored in a database). Even then, the officer may ask for proof (receipt, bank statement, etc.). This EU sounds increasingly like the DPRK!

But guess what? The CN 22 or CN 23 slip is only half of the story. Postal operators must send an “Electronic Advance Data” (EAD) message to the first EU customs node before the sack is loaded on the plane. Because of this requirement, Canada Post, USPS, Royal Mail, etc. now refuse to accept any small packet unless the sender has completed the online customs screen, even for a €3 birthday card. Even if it (and you) qualify for the “gift” exemption, the EAD must still be present; if the sender forgets, the envelope goes to the manual pile, and you will still pay VAT after they open it.

The trick is that EU law (Art. 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights) protects correspondence, not goods. Once a customs declaration is attached (even to a simple envelope!), the item is classified as a “postal packet containing goods” and may be opened without a court order under Art. 134(1)(d) of the Union Customs Code.

But if this is about a greeting card (not an open postcard, but one enclosed in a sealed envelope), which, despite the presence “of an IC and of a battery” (they might care less about the piezoelectric buzzer), is still private correspondence. So the EU is using a legal subterfuge to violate your correspondence!

The Union treats the mere existence of a customs label (CN 22 / CN 23 or the EAD) as the instant the letter ceases to be pure correspondence and becomes a “postal packet containing goods.” But if you don’t add a customs label, the presence “of an IC and of a battery” would lead to either a refusal from the originating postal service or an automatic reclassification at the EU entering point. Either way, your correspondence is no longer correspondence!

If the EU had a “de minimis” regime of €22 that it abolished mid-2021, and the US had a “de minimis” regime of $800 that it abolished in August 2025, Canada still has a dual “de minimis” regime: the threshold is CAD 20 for postal shipments and CAD 40 for courier shipments. That means no GST/HST and no duty under these thresholds.

The Canadian discrimination based on the cost incurred customs-side depending on transport modes is objectively arbitrary from a recipient’s standpoint. Duties and GST/HST should exclusively depend on the value of the goods, if honesty were a rule. A CAD 25 T-shirt is a CAD 25 T-shirt whether it lands in Mississauga by Canada Post or by FedEx. Making one channel tax-free up to CAD 20 and the other up to CAD 40 looks like plain discrimination.

On paper, the WTO’s “most-favored-nation” clause allows different treatment of different transport modes if the distinction is “objectively justified” (GATT Art. I:1 & Art. III). Canada’s justification is administrative efficiency, and so far no WTO member has challenged it.

Fun fact: Until the mid-1990s, Canada imposed the same CAD 20 “de minimis” on everything, including books. Because books are low-margin, Amazon.com opened domestic fulfillment centers in Canada (first in Mississauga, 1999) so shipments were GST-free and duty-free to the consumer (books are zero-rated in Canada).

Another fun fact: China has no “de minimis” regime; everything is statutorily taxable from the first yuan. Cross-border B2C parcels from approved e-commerce platforms are taxed under a regime that gives the consumer a flat 30% discount on the statutory tariff + VAT + consumption-tax amount, but the tax is never zero. Personal mail is exempt up to a declared value of CNY 50 (roughly €6 or $7).

Back to the fixed customs duty of €3 on small parcels

These EU cheapskates don’t even attempt to be fair. They mention “that such parcels currently enter the EU duty-free, leading to unfair competition for EU sellers,” but the duty regime with the €150 threshold could have been lowered to, say, €50, and let’s not forget that VAT is applied from the first cent of the value!

Then, regarding the possible “health and safety risks for consumers” and the alleged “high levels of fraud and environmental concerns,” such aspects will not be solved by a fixed €3 tax! So it’s all a pretext.

The “health and safety risks for consumers” depend on the existence of a genuine “CE” certification and the conformity to it. This can only be assessed by random checks, and a €3 tax has nothing to do with it. It’s like the blanket levy on storage media, which supposes the consumer “guilty of piracy by default,” but the levy doesn’t authorize the owner of a DVD-RW, of a flash drive, or of an HDD or SSD to engage in “digital piracy.” But hey, any tax is good!

The “high levels of fraud” have to be proven. Again, a fixed tax is not the right means. Let’s just tax everyone for the “high levels of fraud” that happen elsewhere in our economies! Everyone must pay for what some people steal!

Finally, “the environmental concerns” should also be assessed on a case-by-case principle. The EU uses the “Green Deal” pretense to blame the contents of the under-€150 parcels as being by default harmful for the environment! How would a €3 tax fix that?!

It’s obvious that this €3 tax is a result of the intense lobbying of the decaying European e-commerce platforms and of European “producers” (most products are still made outside the EU but sold more expensively than they should be). Honesty is not a value in Brussels.

Let me put this in perspective by the means of a made-up comparison. A specific product manufactured outside the Union (I’ll try using “Union” instead of “EU” more often, because it reminds me of the defunct Soviet Union):

  • Might cost €19.99 as sold by a reputable European name (how do you say “enseigne” in English?).
  • Might cost €14.99 as sold by Amazon.de directly.
  • Might cost €9.99 as sold via Amazon.de’s Marketplace or via eBay by a Chinese person or company who ships from within the Union from Hamburg or Rotterdam.
  • Might cost €4.99 as sold via AliExpress or TEMU. (It might even be a fake, but let’s keep this out of this discussion. You could receive a counterfeit even when shipped from Hamburg or Rotterdam.)

I would never choose the last option! But because the last option exists, it keeps the other prices in check; the new €3 tax will lead to an increase in prices for products sent from within the Union!

What’s worse, the Union wants to add another illegal fee: “The measure is distinct from the proposed so-called ‘handling fee’ which is currently under discussion.”

Handling fee, my ass! And they say only extremists call the EU the “Soviet European Union,” because the EU is the best thing that could have happened to us Europeans!

It’s better than death, better than Communism, and better than being conquered by Russia, but otherwise no, it’s quite the contrary. A reasonable thing would have been a continent of fully sovereign nations bound by multilateral agreements of a technical nature (so that people, goods and services, and money could freely move), but not with this Soviet-style centralism!

Enter Romania

At the end of 2025, Romania is a completely failed EU nation that, in the past, under the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu, entertained good diplomatic relations simultaneously with the US and with China, simultaneously with Israel and the PLO, and so on. Actually, it was the previous Communist dictator, Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, who initiated a rapprochement with the US by distancing from the USSR in the context of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. After 1956, the USSR was at odds with China, so Romania’s distancing from the Soviets made it logical to have closer rapports with China.

But today’s Romania is very good at sycophancy. It can bootlick both the US and the EU, and it can be even worse than its masters when it comes to lambasting China. Yessir!

Romania is supposed to add a RON 25 (about €5) fee to such small packages, starting January 1, 2026.

I’m not sure whether this is supposed to be a fixed customs duty like the €3 one that will come into force Union-wide on July 1, 2026, or if it’s more like the discussed “handling fee,” but in either case, it’s an infringement of the Common Customs Tariff.

Specifically, import duties being higher if the goods enter the EU through Romania than if they enter via another member state is incompatible with the principle of uniform customs duties.

But who the fuck cares about laws in Romania?

If the law enters into force on 1 January 2026 as planned, Romania will immediately be in breach of EU law. The Commission will almost certainly launch an infringement action; experience shows Romania would lose in Court and have to abolish the national levy (and refund any sums collected).

As KPMG notes on November 24, “Although the logistics tax is scheduled to become effective on January 1, 2026, the law has not yet been promulgated or published in the official gazette.”

However, if it enters into force,

The tax would be imposed on parcels entering Romania from outside the EU when the declared value of the goods is under €150. This applies regardless of where in the EU the goods are released for free circulation.

This is even worse. It doesn’t matter if those goods are destined for Romania or the final destination is Germany, France, etc.: they still get taxed with “the Romanian tax” upon entering Romania from outside the EU!

Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan, infringement is your middle name!

The draft of the law L213/2025 has already been challenged three times before the Romanian Constitutional Court, but the only objection that has been admitted concerns the use of polygraphs. This tax was deemed constitutional because the Romanian Constitutional Court does not deal with the EU’s Common Customs Tariff.

The first time, the Court had to consider, among many other issues, specific provisions of Art. XXII, including this tax. Look for “32. Art. XXII din lege este criticat din perspectiva încălcării dispozițiilor art. 16, 44, 45, 56 și 135 din Constituție.” [“32. Article XXII of the law is criticized from the perspective of violating the provisions of Articles 16, 44, 45, 56, and 135 of the Constitution.”]

The Court disagreed. Look for “55. Consideră că … Motiv pentru care, prin art. XXII din lege, Guvernul a instituit taxa de 25 lei pentru fiecare colet extracomunitar sub 150 euro, pentru a-i proteja pe retailerii locali și pentru a descuraja consumatorii de produse extracomunitare, cu prețuri reduse, unde există riscul nerespectării standardelor de conformitate UE de siguranță și calitate.” [“55. Considers that … For this reason, under Article XXII of the law, the Government has introduced a tax of 25 lei for each non-EU parcel worth less than 150 euros, in order to protect local retailers and discourage consumers from purchasing low-priced non-EU products, where there is a risk of non-compliance with EU safety and quality standards.”]

These are the same arguments used in the Council’s press release!

The version of the law sent to President Nicușor Dan for promulgation has this RON 25 tax intact. Look for page 73 in the PDF.

This is not only infringement material; it’s even a double taxation, as duly noted by this news report: Dublă taxare pentru coletele ieftine Temu, Shein și Trendyol. UE impune 3 euro, România plusează cu încă 25 de lei. [Double taxation for cheap Temu, Shein and Trendyol parcels. The EU imposes €3, Romania ups the ante with another 25 lei.] 🤦🤦🤦

Final words

I am ashamed to be a European, and I am ashamed to be born a Romanian.

Make no mistake, I do not want to bring “the Chinese model” to Europe! I respect China’s history and traditions, I acknowledge its admirable economic and technological development, and it’s not my business to judge its governance model. After all, hundreds of millions of Chinese seem rather happy these days. OK, China ranks rather low in the Global Happiness Index, but so does Japan, so this can’t be a valid argument.

But I cherish the European way of life, or what was left of it. The mental retardation of the political class, of the CEOs, and of the Eurocracy has brought Europe to a crossroads. Under the current circumstances, my moral compass points this way:

  • We should act pragmatically, which is exactly what we don’t do! See my previous post for details: Mark Rutte just made a huge mistake.
  • We should act in good faith, fairly, and in full honesty. The EU and the Romanian taxes described in this post are light-years away from such an attitude! But there are many other unmentioned cases, such as the unproven and unsubstantiated claim that “Huawei means spying by the Chinese Communist Party.” We should rather look towards Pegasus and Palantir!

What else was left to be said?

And no, I am not “sold to the Chinese.” I never bought anything from the aforementioned platforms.

📻🔌⚡🔎💡

SIDE NOTE: Big Clive is a Briton whose YT channel features more than 2,700 videos that are, most of them, teardowns of electronic equipment, with reverse engineering of the schematics, and explanation of how the respective devices work. In some cases, fake, fraudulent or dangerous devices are exposed.

While Big Clive’s teardowns of low-cost electronics are unique and fascinating, especially given the schematic reconstructions, he has recently taken pleasure in engaging in a spree of AliExpress shopping episodes, with filmed unbagging of such “sacks of joy.” Some of the received devices will suffer further examination in future videos.

Episodes: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen.

With all the bad things brought by the Brexit, at least Clive won’t be affected by this new EU tax, should he want to go on with such “unbagging therapy”!