The Cocaine Highway to Europe
During the UFE-congress 2026 the Nordic Customs Organization managed to draw focus towards the increasing threath from organized crime who flows Europe with Cocaine and all the violence and crime that follow in its footpath.
The "Cocaine tsunami" which are hitting Europe hard has been an important topic for a couple of years, an has been widely discussed among the Nordic member unions in different arenas - now also at an Europen level.
Annual NTO-meeting
Before the UFE-congress there was a short NTO-meeting. In addition to share the national reports, preperation to the agenda for the UFE-congress was the main topics of this meeting.
The political interest is growing in Sweden and in Norway, while Finland is struggeling while all attention goes towards the military build-up. Iceland reports that there is no particular interest about customs (Iceland has recently merged Tax and Customs), and the number of customs officers are decreasing from a all time high in 2017 with 123 vs only 93 today. At the same time as the drug traffic and drug and organized crime is also increasing in Iceland. In Denmark there is also a staff reduction in process, and this makes a critical resource situation even worse.
There were more discussions about armament and as of today there is only in Sweden and Finland were all or some of the officers are armed. This is not on the agenda in Iceland or Denmark, while in Norway this is a growing concern amongst some political parties.
Download the NTO agenda here:
Cocaine threath is still increasing
The increase of organized crime contiunes to be a concern to all the Nordic Countries, and a lot of the debate both at the NTO-meeting as well as at the UFE-congress was held about how the Customs can contribute to battle this, in cooperation with other governmental authorities. Karin Tanderø Schaug from the Norwegian Customs Union, held a presentation on behalf of all the Nordic unions about how the criminal organizations are adapting their routes from South-America and where in Europe their importing their contraband. Reports confirm that the amount of Cocaine is increasing each year, and they are constantly searching for the weakest link in Europe - inside or outside the EU.
Download relevant documents:
Experiences from merging Tax and Customs in Spain
The Spanish delegation was unfortunately not able to attend, and they should held a presentation about their experiences from having one Authority for borth tax and customs, in many ways like in Denmark and Iceland. Here you can see that presentations:
Committee report and honorary member
This was the last UFE congress with two committes - the Tax committee and the Customs Committee, and both chairmen presented their committee reports to the General Assembly. This was also the last report from the chairman of the customs committee, Rob Roodenrijs, whom is now retireing. At the end of the congress, Rob was inaugarated as a honorary member of the UFE.
Download the chairman report of the Customs committee:
New statutes
A set of new statutes of UFE were decided on this congress. They are modernised and are now exclusivly in English. The working language in UFE will from now on be English, and this will also save expenses on translators. Another change is the Executive board. This is a replacement from what was the Presidium, and besides the President, all the others are now Board members. A consequence of this is that it will be only one vice-president - which will be elected from one of the Board members. The function of a vice-president is only to fill inn for the president if this is incapasitated for a longer period of time. I additons there will also be a Secretary General in the board - without a vote.
Another change is that there is no longer a separate committee for the tax and another for the customs members, all member unions are now only members in the General Assembly. This is consistent with the reality for the latest congress periods.
Download the new statutes here:
The new Executive board:
The executive board was elected as:
President: Florian Köbler, DSTG (DE)
Board Member: Sabine Portela SFD (FR)
Board Member: Karin Tanderø Schaug, NT (NO)
Board Member: Dermot Brown, AHCPS (IR)
Board Member: Joost Eveleens, VHMF (NL)
Board Member: Lászlo Szabo, VPDSZ (RO)
Board Member: Nuno Barroso, APIT (PT)
Board Member: Goncalo Rodriguez STI (PT)
Board Member: Miguel Mayo GESTHA (ES)
Board Member: Steinar Myhre Knutsen NCO (Nordic Unions).
The board will be constistuted at the first board meeting, where one of the members also will be elected as vice president. Hanna Kilimnik from DTSG is chosen as the Secretary General of the UFE (with no vote).
Other motions and resolutions
There were decided on several political resoultions during this congress and you can read the all below:
Basic support for ViDA:
Central EU solution:
Accelerated implementation
Personnel increase
UFE as driving force
EU customs reform and the platform economy
BEFIT – supportive, but conditional
Omnibus and DAC recast
Two other resoulutions were dicussed and decided upon but there is no finished document to share as of now. These resolutions stated:
Securing the next generation – resilient administrations
30–35 % of staff retire within a decade; entrance examinations are failed, young staff leave; pay competes with the private sector (UFE Atlas); staff face pressure from extremism and organised crime. Builds on the World Café 15.5.
Decision: Binding staffing plans; competitive pay with the UFE Atlas as European reference; open career paths and protected learning time; knowledge transfer; modern working conditions; protection of staff; a European exchange programme – Working Group Workforce and Resilience to report in 2028.
and
Human-centric AI in tax and customs administrations
AI is already used in risk scoring, case selection and fraud detection; ViDA, the Customs Data Hub and BEFIT will multiply the data. The AI Act classifies many of these systems as high-risk. In 2024 the Congress insisted: AI must assist staff, not replace them.
Decision: Ten principles: augmented, not automated decisions · explainability as a rule-of-law requirement · no surveillance of staff · relief, not work intensification · participation from the start · qualification with protected learning time · sovereign and secure infrastructure · knowledge stays in the house – a UFE Charter on Human-centric AI by 2028.
Priorities for the next two years:
The General Assembly also decided on three motions which gives the new Executive board some task to work with in before the next congress in 2028.
Motion 1: "The Exectuive Board shall before the next UFE-congress prepare a motion for: a revised Scaled and Phased Membership Fee Structure, based on tiered fee structure according to the scale of the organisations and phased fee structure for new Member Organisations.“
Motion 2: “The Exectuive Board shall before the next UFE-congress prepare a motion for:
a set of Rules of Procedure for the UFE, to give guidelines to how the different bodies of the UFE shall conduct their duties.“
Motion 3: “The Executive Board shall during the next two years make it a prioritized task to:
Map and identify prospective new member unions and/or professional organisations, and
develop a pipeline for membership for those who are interested in a trial or ordinary membership in the UFE“.
The UFE Atlas
Florian Köbler presented the UFE Atlas, a a comparative study of 19 countries regarding pay, pensions and purchasing power in Europe’s tax and customs administrations. This will be updated yearly and made available for the Members unions of UFE.
This first study, with reference numbers from 93 sources in 2025 shows these initial findings:
Europe’s spread is enormous: For a line manager (profile P3) net lifetime income ranges from about €1.1 m to €6.5 m – a factor of 5.6; within the EU-27 still a factor of 3.9.
Purchasing power reshuffles the ranking: Adjusted for price levels, Spain and Italy move into the top group; the Nordic countries fall back despite high nominal pay.
A crowded upper mid-field: Switzerland and Luxembourg lead clearly; a group of seven countries sits within ± 15 % of the European median.
Central and Eastern Europe closer than assumed: Nominally far behind, but after PPS adjustment the gap narrows markedly; Hungary has the highest net replacement rate (80 %).
Women gain lifetime income everywhere: Purely through longer life expectancy at 65 – between +4 % and +9 %. Equal pay in active service does not offset the longer retirement phase; it complements it.
Download the UFE Atlas here:
The next congress fo UFE will be held in 2028 - location of the venue is still to be decided.
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