Judgment — ECLI:EU:C:2010:236
Date: 2010-04-29
Language of the case: Italian
Court formation: Third Chamber
Subject matter: Agriculture and Fisheries;External relations;Fruit and vegetables;Taxation;Commercial policy;Associated African States and Madagascar;Bananas
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Italy

Summary of the Judgment 1. International agreements – First Yaoundé Convention – General trade arrangements (Art. 90 EC; First Yaoundé Convention of 20 July 1963, Art. 14) 2. International agreements – Fourth ACP-EEC Lomé Convention – General trade arrangements (Fourth ACP-EEC Lomé Convention of 15 December 1989, Protocol No 5, Art. 1) 1. Article 14 of the Convention of Association between the European Economic Community and the African States and Madagascar associated with the Community, signed at Yaoundé on 20 July 1963, did not preclude a tax on bananas originating in Somalia. According to its wording, that provision simply imposes a prohibition on discriminatory taxation of like products, using terms resembling those in the first paragraph of Article 90 EC, and does not therefore relate to unlike products that are in competition with each other. If the Community and the African States and Madagascar associated with the Community had intended to address the problem of the internal taxation of unlike products in competition with each other, instead of adopting a provision similar only to the first paragraph of Article 90 EC, they would have adopted a provision that was also modelled on the second paragraph of Article 90 EC. (see paras 24-25, 37-38, operative part 1) 2. A national court is not required to examine the specific effects of increases of a tax on imports of bananas originating in Somalia by comparison with the situation before 1 April 1976, the date when the First ACP‑EEC Lomé Convention entered into force, in order to determine whether such increases are compatible with the standstill clause in Article 1 of Protocol No 5 on bananas annexed to the Fourth ACP‑EEC Lomé Convention. Such increases lead to increases in the price of the bananas concerned and, accordingly, make it more difficult to sell them on the market in question. Accordingly, in order to examine such an increase from the perspective of the standstill clause, it is not normally necessary to examine the specific effects of the increase on imports. However, increases of such a tax which simply adjust it to take account of inflation are not incompatible with that Article 1 of Protocol No 5. (see paras 43, 45, 47, 48, operative part 2)