On January 13th and 14th, 2024, Vasilka Tochkova, Deputy Director of the Territorial Directorate Sofia Customs, and Elena Mancheva - Inspector in the same Customs Directorate were guest speakers at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration. They delivered lectures within the discipline "Customs Regimes and Procedures" to the students of the master's program "Customs and Tax Control" supervised by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tsvetan Madanski.

Vasilka Tochkova presented the topic "Approved economic operators". In the conditions of globalization and a changed international environment, customs, together with economic operators, play a key role in ensuring the security of the supply chain, while at the same time providing facilities to honest traders.

The presentation was interesting and useful for the students. The issues were related to the mutual recognition of AEO certificates, security and safety threats, AEO status, international supply chain participants and their responsibilities, the AEO application procedure, as well as the specific requirement that the applicant has completed training in customs legislation, which corresponds to his degree of involvement in customs-related activities and is provided by the customs authorities of a Member State or an educational institution recognized by the customs authorities to provide such a qualification.

For her part, Elena Mancheva presented the topic of the customs regime "Transit" with its specifics and peculiarities, and examples from practice were examined and presented.

A very fruitful discussion ensued. The students were very satisfied with the lecturers, who have more than 30 years of experience in the customs administration.