International Training For Military Customs Officials

Seventeen years ago, in 1992, a department-level organization was established at what was called the HDF Financial Bureau back then, to perform the military customs and cross-border traffic tasks of the defence portfolio. Naturally, the changes in the Hungarian Defence Forces did not leave the customs and cross-border traffic department unaffected either – Captain György Gulyás, the senior officer of the organization told honvedelem.hu – because in 2000 they were subordinated to the MoD Procurement and Security Investment Bureau (HM BBBH) under the name Customs and Cross-Border Traffic Directorate. And even though they belonged to the HM BBBH until 2007, as of 2005, they were operating as a department again.

In 2007, they were reorganized again and were subordinated to the newly established MoD Development and Logistics Agency (HM FLÜ), International and Service Directorate as a travel organization, customs, and cross-border traffic department. The task of ‘travel organization’ was ‘taken away’ from the department in the same year, and since then they have been operating with a staff of nine – four people are working in the field of cross-border traffic, four of them are customs experts, and there is also a secretary to assist the team.

The initial scope of responsibilities has widened, of course, and soon they were dealing with the implementation of customs procedures related to the foreign trade activity of the ministry and transport tasks, and with planning, organizing, and implementing the activities related to cross-border traffic. In addition to that they are also responsible for arranging the customs and cross-border traffic issues of the Hungarian Defence Forces’ troop movements entailing border crossing; issuing permits for the movement of the troops and consignments of foreign armed forces; organizing and controlling customs procedures and cross-border tasks and supervising their implementation in theatres of operations and in Hungary.

In the activity of the organization the administration related to excise goods, issuing excise licenses for domestic fuel purchases, keeping records and writing reports, and the supervision of fuel centres and users also have an important role – told us Captain Gulyás, from whom we also learned that in addition to all these tasks, the professionals of the department also hold a general passenger traffic briefing for the soldiers leaving for foreign missions, and conduct special customs preparatory trainings for logistics troops responsible for issuing military customs documents and sending and receiving consignments in the missions. Since 2002, the department has been working, on the basis of the rights, responsibilities, and competences stipulated by a provision, as a military customs organ with national competence that is exlusively authorized to carry out the customs, excise, and cross-border activities of the Ministry of Defence and the Hungarian Defence Forces, and to provide assistance to foreign armed forces in customs issues.

About the activity of the organization the expert said that in the field of military technology procurement, the rehaul and purchase-related customs activities concerning the MISTRAL missile system, the encryption devices, the Gripen fighters and their armaments, VHF radios, MiG–29 fighters, Mi–24 combat helicopters, and the AN–26 transport aircraft, have a distinctive role. In recent years, the transport of 497 military lorries that had been withdrawn from the fleet of the Bundeswehr and donated to the Hungarian Defence Forces, and shorty after that, the transport of 25 Mercedes Wolf ATVs and 4 Mercedes Unimog military ambulances was an exceptional customs and transport task for them.

In addition to that it is also important to mention another activity of military customs officials: the customs administration of ammunition and weapons for Georgia and Afghanistan, and that of the 77 T–72 tanks transported to Iraq, also carried out by the colleagues of the department. Among their tasks, the so-called ’customs issues of military troop movements’ constitute a separate ’category’. In recent years, there has been a great emphasis on the customs administration necessary to the troop movements of foreign contingents coming to Hungary in the framework of NATO and Partnership for Peace exercises and ’target practice on payment’, but the customs activities related to the disassembly of the camp of the Hungarian Engineering Contingent in Okucani, Croatia; the dispatch and relocation of the HDF Transport Battalion serving in Iraq; the dispatch of the HDF Light Infantry Company to Afghanistan; or the HDF Guard and Security Battalion and the HDF KFOR Company in Kosovo also have to be mentioned – said Captain György Gulyás.

The colleagues of the Customs and Cross-Border Traffic Department of the HDF Development and Logistics Agency participated in a professional training between 6 and 8 October, the purpose of which was making the professionals competent in military customs activities in theatres of operations – Captain Gulyás told honvédelem.hu, adding that in 2008, Hungary was the leading nation at the Kabul international airport, and this shed a light on what a wide spectrum of activities are meant by service in foreign military missions today.

In other words, until now the classic ‘military customs’ activity in theatres of operations, that is the control of the flow of goods and persons, has been missing. This is what they have been prepared for at the training, where lectures were delivered by the professionals of the US Forces Customs Executive Agency for the Hungarian colleagues and the professionals of the civilian customs authority.

The topics of the training included Airport Terminal Operations, that is the customs activity to be carried out in airports, for example searching for drugs with dogs. The third very important field was the after-cleaning review of equipments and technical devices returning from theatres of operations because in the case of vehicles, parasites or rodents may arrive which can be dangerous to humans or harmful to agriculture. And at the same time this is one of the tools of modern terrorism. These activites to be carried out in theatres of operations have been missing from the ’repertoire’ of Hungarian military customs officials until now – told us Captain Gulyás.

The professionals also exchanged their views about the customs procedures and documents of the United States of America and the European Union, and the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) project, the military assistance program of the American and the Hungarian government was also discussed. In the opinion of the participants, the knowledge they have mastered during the training can be used by Hungarian military customs professionals and incorporated in their own regulations.