I'm sure you weren't charged just customs fees though, but sales (= value added) tax as well. There's no way around it. I have packages sent from the U.S. to Germany opened and inspected by customs on a regular basis.

One shipment of Pekan nuts a while back from Georgia my wife had to personally pick up and open in front of the customs personnel. Don't know why they couldn't open it themselves or at least look at the contents list on the outside of the package. She didn't have to pay anything extra on that one though.

It is truly a pain to deal with customs and have to pay surcharges that amount to at least 16% value added tax plus anywhere from 5-15% customs fee on goods worth above $50. And 16% is not even the highest sales tax in Europe. Belgium has 22% and Denmark 25% if I'm not mistaken.

So, I don't know how sending something to a different European country would have changed that much for you in terms of fees and tax to be paid.

Sure, occasionally something slips through customs, but that happens very rarely here.

Georg