COMMISSION RECOMMENDATION N° 3909/91/ECSC

of 18 December 1991

on prior Community surveillance of imports of certain iron and steel products covered by the ECSC Treaty and originating in non-member countries

THE COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES,

Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community, and in particular Article 74 thereof,

Whereas by Recommendation N° 556/91/ECSC (1), the Commission made imports into the Community of certain iron and steel products covered by the Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community subject to Community surveillance;

Whereas the reasons which originally led the Commission to introduce this measure continue to apply and the said surveillance system should therefore be continued so as to provide more detailed information on foreseeable imports and the terms and conditions of such imports;

Whereas some Member States still have quantitative restrictions on iron and steel products from certain third countries, and import surveillance is therefore required;

Whereas the surveillance should, however, be simplified and made more effective,

MAKES THE FOLLOWING RECOMMENDATION:

Article 1

1. The release for free circulation in the Community of iron and steel products covered by the ECSC Treaty, listed in Annex I and originating in non-member countries other than the countries of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) shall be subject to the issue of an import document.

2. The import document shall be issued or endorsed by the Member States, free of charge and for any quantities requested, upon receipt of the application and in any case within not more than 10 working days from the submission of the completed application.

3. Paragraph 2 shall apply without prejudice to the applicability of quantitative limits based on existing restrictions imposed by the Member States on certain iron and steel products in respect of certain non-member countries.

4. The period of validity of the import document is hereby fixed at three months, without prejudice to possible changes in the import arrangements in force.

5. Without prejudice to paragraph 3, unused or partly-used import documents may be renewed in accordance with the procedure laid down by the competent authority.

Article 2

1. The importer's application must state:

(a) the name, address, occupation, telephone number, telex number and fax number of the importer;

(b)

the exporter's name and address;

(c)

the description of the goods and the CN code(s);

(d)

the country of origin;

(e)

the country of consignment;

(f)

the net weight, by EEC nomenclature heading;

(g)

the currency and value invoiced (cif or daf) by EEC nomenclature heading;

(h)

whether the products concerned are seconds or of substandard quality (2);

(i)

the proposed date(s) and place(s) of customs clearance.

2. The importer shall certify that his application for an import document is accurate and shall submit a copy either of the purchase contract(s) or of the vendor's order confirmation(s); confirmations shall be accompanied by the pro forma invoice.

3. The importer shall state whether his application is a repeat of a previous application concerning the same delivery.

4. Without prejudice to Article 1 (3), paragraph 1 shall not prevent release for free circulation in cases where the unit price for the transaction exceeds that indicated in the import document or the quantity of products presented on import exceeds that stipulated in the import document by less than 5 % in aggregate.

Article 3

1. Within the first 10 days of each month, the Member States shall notify the Commission of the tonnage and values (calculated on the basis of the cif or daf prices) for which import documents were issued during the preceding month, giving the particulars entered in the importers' applications under Article 2 (1) (a), (c) to (h).

2. Within the first 10 days of each month, Member States shall notify the Commission of the tonnage and the values for which import documents expired during the preceding month unused or only partly used.

3. The Member States shall give notification of any anomalies or cases of fraud which they discover.

Article 4

This recommendation is addressed to the Member States.

Article 5

This recommendation shall be applicable from 1 January 1992. It shall apply until 31 December 1992.

Done at Brussels, 18 December 1991.

For the Commission

Frans ANDRIESSEN

Vice-President

(1) OJ N° L 62, 8. 3. 1991, p. 18.

(2) Under the criteria given in OJ N° C 180, 11. 7. 1991, p. 4.