Order — ECLI:EU:C:2001:536
Date: 2001-10-11
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Accession;Agriculture and Fisheries;Free movement of goods;Customs Union;Sugar
Concepts: Own resources of the Communities;General;Provisions relating to certain common organizations of the markets
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Portugal

Summary of the Order 
1. Preliminary rulings — Answer admitting of no reasonable doubt — Questions to 
which the answer may be clearly deduced from the Court's existing case-law — 
Application of Article 104(3) of the Rules of Procedure 
(Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, Art. 104(3)) 
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SUMMARY — CASE C-30/00 
2. Own resources of the European Communities — Post-clearance recovery of import or 
export duties — Time-limit for recovery — Entry in the accounts of the amount 
originally required of the person liable for payment — Definition — Official act 
which precedes notification regarding recovery and actual recovery — Entry by the 
customs authority in the accounts books, or any other medium used in their stead, of 
the amount in question — Not relevant 
(Council Regulation No 1697/79, Arts 1(2)(c) and 2(1), second para.) 
3. Own resources of the European Communities — Post-clearance recovery of import or 
export duties — Time-limit for recovery — Setting in motion of action for recov­
ery — Initial act of the administration determining the amount of levies payable 
annulled and replaced by a second act confined to correcting the former by fixing the 
levies payable in an amount lower than the former — Action set in motion by the 
initial act 
(Council Regulation No 1697/79, Art. 2(2)) 
4. Accession of new Member States to the Communities — Portugal — Agriculture — 
Common organisation of the markets — Sugar — Obligation incumbent on the 
Portuguese Republic to proceed, at its own costs, to the elimination of surplus 
stocks — Payment of a levy imposed by that State on traders holding a surplus which 
fail to export stocks within a certain period — Whether permissible 
(1985 Act of Accession, Art. 254; Council Regulation No 3771/85; Commission 
Regulation No 579/86, Art. 7(1)) 
5. Own resources of the European Communities — Post-clearance recovery of import or 
export duties — Criteria for waiver of recovery laid down in Article 5(2) of 
Regulation No 1697/79 
(Council Regulation No 1679/79, Art. 5(2)) 
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