The Nordic Customs Organization are very concerned about the differences in political committments about the role the customs and border authorities have to preserve the day-to-day security and safety in our societies. From the left: Jari Ylönen (FI), Ingvi S. Johannsson (IS), Rainer Lindholm (FI), Jørn Rise (DK), Johan Lindgren (SE) and Karin Tanderø Schaug (NO). The congress started with a discussion about the financial and organizational challenges in the five different customs administrations. The directions that the five administrations are going in are diametrical different. In Sweden, and so far also in Norway, the governments are increasing their commitment and investments in the customs. While in Denmark they are on the brink of a new large downsizing. In a world with increased unrest, a changed and unstable geopolitical security situation, and a Nordic situation where organized crime is operating across the borders like never before - a downsizing is nothing short of intolerable! The first line of defense – against everything! The customs administrations and border authorities are every nations first line of defense. In the dire times we`re in, NCO will urge the Danish parliament and political decisionmakers to take action and do their part to uphold the security and social stability in Denmark. The NCO agreed on a joint statement where Denmark is encouraged to reconsider the budget cuts. The statement also works as a warning to the other Nordic countries that the focus on border security and sufficient funding and staff must continue. We cannot afford that the border administrations fail in ther social and public mission. Download or open the statement here: Director of "toldstyrelsen" - the customs director The meeting continued with each union presenting their national brief, and the danish customs director, Christian Lützen, adressed the NCO with his concerns about the challenges the customs are facing today and in the near future. This exchange of thoughts and ideas between management and unions is a good tradition in NCO, and shows that we more often than not, are on the same side. We have a common interest in developing our customs administrations as good as it can be. Even if the nordic customs directors have regularly meetings, the information that can be collected in a forum like this is quite uniqe. At gunpoint - armed officers or not Karin Tanderø Schaug from Norsk Tollerforbund delivering the national brief from Norway. Earlier this year, the NCO conducted a survey among the Nordic countries about what equipment and legislation they have to protect themselves and the public. There is a large variation. Sweden and Finland are the two nations that have implemented the most tools at this point. They both have handguns available, and also batons, Finland has non-lethal Taser-guns. All countries except Denmark, has some kind of defensive spray (pepper-spray). In Norway there are poltical voices who has started to raise the idea the the customs should be armed, but there is no decision made as of now. There is certainly a need to invest more in safety measures, defensive spray should be a bare minimum, but also more effective tools like Taser-guns is a non-lethal option that should be taken in to consideration in more coutries than Finland. The NCO discussed the topic and will follow the development closely. However all the unions made it clear that the most important safety measure is to have enough staff. There will be a follow up on this topis in the European organization, UFE, which most of the NTO-unions are members of. Read the summary of how the different administrations are armed here: A new shortcut to Europe Germeny in the horizon - at this location the new short-cut tunnel to Europe will be opened in 2029. Since the meeting were held in Køge, it was an oppertunity to visit the new tunnel-project Femern-Sund, which is a new connection between Denmark and Germany. The 18 kilometer log tunnel will replace the ferry between Rødby-Puttgarden with four lanes of motorway and high-speed railway thus shortening the time to travel between Europe and Denmark, and also further to Sweden an Norway. The tunnel is an uniqe project with sections of the tunnel being made at a large concret factory at shore, then brought out to sea and sunken and assembled at the sea bed. Finaly the will cover the elements by gravel and sand. The tunnel will open in 2029. You can read more about the Femern-Sund project here . The new tunnel also means a new customs control station. Today the closest station is in Nørre Alslev which the delegation aslo visited, and this will be moved closer to the tunnel before it opens in 2029. The NTO visits the customs station i Nørre Alslev The agenda There were a lot of important topics this year. One of the most important issues is the national reports - each union gives a "state of the union" and adresses what is happening in their countries and in their administrations. Further more the agande had the following items: Welcome Presentation by Director Christian Lützen, Danish Customs Agency Country Reports Working Group – Status Committee in the NCO on the Legal Mandates of Customs Officers in the Nordic Countries UFE – Status by UFE Vice President Karin Tanderø Schaug and Steinar Myhre Knutsen Well-being and Other Personnel Policy Matters Sick Leave, Work-Related Stress, and Work Environment Arming of Customs Officers in the Nordic Countries Security / Geopolitical Issues NCO – Organizational Matters Possible Statement from the NCO Scheduling of the 2026 Meeting in Connection with the UFE Meeting Any Other Business The two-day congress was not enough to cover all the items as thoroughly as wanted, but the discussion will continue during the quarterly video-meetings NTO are having. Next year there is no NTO-congress, but there will be a one-day meeting related to the UFE-congress. Where this will be is not yet decided. The swedish union, TULL/KUST, will be responsible to facilitate the meeting, and they will also be hosting the next NTO-congress in 2027. The following years the different unions will rotate as hosts: 2026: Sweden – NTO-meeting at the UFE congress 2027: Sweden – NTO congress in Sweden 2028: Norway – NTO-meeting at the UFE congress 2029: Norway – NTO congress in Norway 2030: Finland – NTO-meeting at the UFE congress 2031: Finland – NTO congress in Finland 2032: Iceland – NTO-meeting at the UFE congress 2033: Iceland – NTO congress in Iceland The delegates from the 2025 NCO congress

As of monday 23. september, four of the six unions in NCO were formally accepted as member unions in the Union of Finance Personnel in Europe (UFE). The UFE now consists of 24 different unions from 14 different countries. The Nordic countries that joined the UFE this year are: Dansk Told & Skatteforbund (DK) Norsk Tollerforbund (NO) TULL/KUST (SE) Tollvardafelag Islands - TFI (IS) The two finnish union, TVML and TL, are yet to decide if they are going to apply for a membership in the future. Solidarity and cooperation in Europe The inauguration was done during this years UFE-congress which is held outside Münich, Germany. An unamonous vote welcomed the nordic unions. On behalf of the NCO-organizations, Karin Tanderø Schaug, president of Norsk Tollerforbund, held an inaugural speech to the UFE - with a tight focus on European solidarity and the importance of wanting to collaborate together: " We`ll start with expressing our thanks to the UFE for wanting us to rejoin this union. Today the largest and most important labour unions for Customs and/or tax-officers in Iceland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway apply for membership in the UFE. We are also accompanied from one of the Finnish unions (TVML) whom are yet to decide if they should apply for membership. Together we are also known as the Nordic Customs Organization, but to clearify – we apply for membership as four separate national unions. We are also accompanied by the union for Norwegian tax-officials in Norway (the SKL) who also are applying to join the UFE. We have all been members of the UFE before, the SKL left in the early 2000, and the NTO-countries withdrew their membership in 2014 – to explore other means and organizations to gain political influence. We have kept up communication an collaboration with the UFE and the UFE presidium in the 10 years that have gone by, and we are now happy to rejoin our European labour union family. I also want to thank you all for inviting us to join and for having some of us as you guests during the last UFE-congress in Luxembourg. I shall not go to deeply into the reasons why we left back in 2014, but rather focus on why we think it`s so important to be a part of the UFE today. There are several other organizations which can be used to put political pressure on EU officials and national governments from a tax- and customs perspective. How ever it`s is nothing like the UFE, where there is ONLY unions from the tax- and customs area and we have concluded that this is our best choice to share information and develop contacts throughout Europe. If we look at the geopolitical situation today, compared to just a few years ago, there has come clear to us that solidarity is more important then ever. The terrible war in Ukraine, war and human disaster in the Middle East, commercial tradewars with China – the world has changed. And therefore, we that can and should stand together, must stand together. As labour unions with many common goals, it`s vital that we support each other, that we show care for each other and that we help our governments develop a society we are proud of and want our present and future members to live and prosper in. We must stop asking “what`s in it for me” and start with “what can we do to help?” The challenges vary in each country. Yes, there are some places in Europe where even being in a union is difficult enough. But you show us your dedication just by taking part here. That`s an inspiration to the rest of us and a reminder that we also must “pay our due”. We are convinced that there is much potential in the UFE. In which degree we can use that potential is up to us in this room – and how much effort we are willing to put in to make a difference. We look forward to getting to know you all better, to be able to use UFE as a forum for inspiration, to be able to learn from each other and I`m hope we can find many ways to help each other – politically and professionally. We want to help develop UFE to the best version of itself . " This is not the first time the NCO-unions are members of the UFE. Ten years ago, in 2014, all of the unions in NCO left the UFE, and now most of them have rejoined this European plattform to exchange experiences and discuss fellow challenges.

The NCO-meeting of 2024 was held outside Münich on the 22. of september. During this meeting a joint statement was made about the "cocain-tsunami" flowing over Europe during the last couple of years. The subject of the statement has been adressed several times. A similar statement was made in Iceland in 2023 and this years statement brings it further. 4-3-2-1 strategy In this statement The Nordic Customs Organization call for action from the Nordic Governments to increase their effort to improve the everyday safety in our countries following these four steps (the inversed 4-3-2-1 strategy): The main objective is to increase the security and safety of our citizens by increased and improved border control. Politically the national governments must Agree on a lasting increase in funding of the Customs authorities – a long-term financial plan The legal basis must be explored and modernised to increase interdepartmental and international cooperation Measures that each Customs authority must implement are: Increase the number of operational staff Equip the units with more and modern control-equipment and IT-tools Modernise and implement new legislation for more efficient border control and cooperation The effects of this measures will be: Reduced accessibility of goods and services that makes the wanted criminal profit Reduced possibility to move criminal profit in/out of the countries Reduced access to the means and tools the criminals use to conduct their crimes Increased collecting, processing and sharing of information on flow of goods and persons connected to organized crime, with the intent to improve own and other authorities in their efforts to work more efficient and goal oriented. New name, new website and updated statutes The website www.nordiccustoms.org was officially opended. This is a simple page which is ment to contain basic information about what the NCO are and how to get in contact with the six different national unions. This is the first time that the NCO has a "place called home" in the digital space, and now it`s possible for polticians and journalists to make a search on the net and actually get a hit on that the NCO really exists. NCO will also publish their political statements and short reports from their biannually meetings and conventions. You will also reach the same website if you use then national domain-servers: www.NordicCustoms.dk www.NordicCustoms.no www.NordicCustoms.se www.NordicCustoms.fi www.NordicCustoms.is As you may have noted in this article the abbriviation NCO is used. During this meeting there was an agreement of two name changes for the Nordic organization. To keep it short and coherent with the website, the international name is now Nordic Customs Union, NCO for short. In the native nordic languages the abbreviation NTO is kept but the full name is now Nordisk Told Organisation (danish spelling). The NTO agreed that it`s was way overdue to change the name into a genderfree designation. Historically the name of the organization has varied some what, and it has been a little different in the native languages over the years - but as of today there is a common designation only made different by the spelling in each country. In addition to the new name of the NCO, there were an agreement that there should be a short description under the name. A working group by NT and DTS will come up with some suggestions for such a description in a later NCO video-meeting. As a direct consequence of the name changes and also the fact that the alternation of the NTO-convention has changed to be every other year, with a NTO-meeting attatched to the UFE-meeting in the year in between, a new set of statutes had to be written. The responsibility to host the meeting and the convention is also shifted from the president to the hosting union. The NTO also made a decision to only have the official statutes written in english from now on. Each national union may translate them if they like, but the original will be in english and not bilingual (danish/english) as earlier. You can download and read the new statutes for NTO/NCO here: Other issues There was also more interresting items om the agenda for this meeting. All the unions presented their national reports, and then there were discussions about the upcoming congress in the UFE an how NCO should approach this meeting. There was a mutual agreement that NCO should make a joint inaugural speech ( read the speech here ) and also attempt to make UFE use the joint NCO-statement (see above) as a statement of their own. There were also discussions about influencing the nordic customs agencies to increase their cooperations regarding purchase of expensive equipment, technological development, special education and serviceagreements. The NCO decided to establish a working committee with participants with a professional background to brainstorm and produce a letter of inspiration that will be sent to all the nordic customs agencies Further on there were some experiences shared from the norwegian conference about "everyday preperedness" and a healthy discussion about the development of employees in the Customs. You can download the agenda here (danish only): The attending unions at this meeting were: Dansk Told & Skatteforbund (DK) Norsk Tollerforbund (NO) TULL/KUST (SE) TVML (FI) and TFI (IS). The finnish union TL was unable to attend, and the norwegian tax officers union, Skatteetatens Landsforbund - SKL - attended as guest during the UFE-part of the meeting, since they also rejoined and attended the following UFE-congress.

Joint statement from the presidents of the Nordic Customs Unions Organization (NTO) Reykjavik Iceland 3. oktober 2023 Cocaine and organized crime in the Nordic countries.   In the Nordic countries we are all effected by the flood wave of cocaine hitting our countries. Several tons of drugs are seized the last year alone. We`re also devastated by the violent development in Sweden, where organized crime has risen to new and unprecedented hights. Organized crime and smuggling are cross-border criminality and must be combatted, not by each nation on its own, but as a multinational cooperation. The only governmental organizations that have full authority on the borders, and therefore stands on the frontline in combatting cross-border crime, is the Customs authorities. The need for a solid border control and well developed multi-national cooperation on an intelligence and operative level have never been clearer or more important. Today’s situation shows organized crime which we never have seen in Nordic countries before. The Nordic Customs Union Organization (NTO) urge the Nordic governments and the Nordic parliaments to help protecting our communities by: • strengthening the national customs agencies • facilitate for an even better cooperation across the borders • the number of, and presence of, border control officers must be increased • more investments in modern tools, equipment, and relevant control facilities all along the borders • safety of the officers must be a constant priority. The NTO demands that the Nordic governments must include the Customs in their strategies and measures to reduce the ongoing threats to our common societies. Who are we: Mission statement:  Nordic Customs Unions Organization (NTO) is an organization compiled by the national customs unions from the Nordic Countries. NTO`s intention is to maintain the liaison and further develop the collaboration between the participating unions. This can be achieved through exchange of experiences, expertise and best practices and cooperation around specific issues. The unions are: Dansk Told & Skatteforbund (DK) Tull/Kust (SE) Tollvardafelag Islands (IS) Tulliliitto (FI) Tullivirkimiesliitto (FI) Norsk Tollerforbund (NO)" Download the press release here: