One of the consequences following establishment of the European Union was removal of borders and customs formalities between Member States, thus creating a single market. This caused that European Union’s statistics was deprived of a source of data on trade in goods within the European Union territory, because customs clearances were discontinued and customs document SAD (Single Administrative Document) disappeared. Therefore it was necessary to create a new, common statistical system for trade between EU Member States. Starting from January 1st, 1993 on the area of Single European Market INTRASTAT system was enforced.

Currently in EU Member States data on foreign trade is obtained from two statistical systems functioning in a parallel way:

1. EXTRASTAT system, covering with its range trade of EU member states with so called “third countries” (e.g. non – member countries)
2. INTRASTAT system, a statistical system covering trade between EU Member States and based on data obtained from INTRASTAT declarations.