3.

It is settled that the Court of Justice has no jurisdiction to determine, in rulings based on Article 177 of the EEC Treaty, the compatibility of particular national provisions with Community law. But there is a consistent body of case-law to the effect that it may, when presented with an imprecisely worded reference for a preliminary ruling, identify the question of Community law in terms which enable it to give a ruling. In this case, the general question on which the Italian court is asking for guidance is clearly that of interpreting the fundamental principles in the EEC Treaty on the free movement of goods, and in particular the principles applicable to the rules concerning imports, in order to establish whether they may preclude national rules which, by subjecting the normal importation of motor vehicles to the payment of value added tax, prohibit persons residing in the territory of that State from making use of motor vehicles which have benefited from the arrangements for temporary importation, and thus from the exemption from that tax. In my opinion the reply should be in the negative, as regards both the imposition of value added tax on the importation of, motor vehicles and the restrictions imposed by national law on the use of a vehicle which has been temporarily imported. In the first instance I think it is beyond question that the application of VAT to imports of motor vehicles for private use cannot give rise to any conflict with the principles of the Treaty. In that respect I think it is sufficient to recall that the application of VAT to imports is expressly provided for in the Second Council Directive of 11 April 1967 — No 67/228/EEC — on the harmonization of legislation of Member States concerning turnover taxes, Article 2 of which provides that: “The following shall be subject to the value added tax ... (b) the importation of goods”. As for the prohibition imposed by a Member State on persons residing therein against using vehicles which have been temporarily imported free of tax, that constitutes — as is rightly observed in the Commission's observations — the only truly effective way of preventing tax evasion and of ensuring that the tax is paid in the country of destination of the goods. In fact it is clear that if persons resident in the importing State were also allowed to use motor vehicles imported temporarily tax-free, it would be exceedingly difficult to identify cases of fraud. However, under the Sixth Council Directive of 17 May 1977, No 77/388/EEC, on the common system of value added tax, the Member States must exempt from value added tax imports of goods under temporary importation arrangements “under conditions which they (the Member States) shall lay down for the purpose of ... preventing any possible evasion, avoidance or abuse” (Article 14). That indicates that the Member States retain wide powers to intervene in relation to temporary importations for the purpose of preventing tax evasion, and that such powers are fully compatible with the principle of the free movement of goods. A further confirmation of that fact is furnished by the Proposal for a Council Directive on tax exemptions for certain means of transport temporarily imported into one Member State from another which was submitted by the Commission on 30 October 1975 (Official Journal 1975 C 267 of 21 November 1975, p. 8). Article 3 of that proposed directive (on the temporary importation of certain means of transport for private use, including motor-driven road vehicles) lays down that such goods shall be exempted provided that the individual who imports them “(aa) has his ... residence in a Member State of the Community other than that of temporary importation; (bb) employs the means of transport in question for his private use”, and that such means “is not disposed of or hired out in the Member State of temporary importation or lent to a resident of that State”. Similar restrictions are provided for under Article 4 of the same proposal as to the use of private cars imported temporarily for business use. The body of secondary Community legislation being drafted thus contains restrictions on the use of vehicles temporarily imported free of tax which are substantially the same as those laid down in the above-mentioned rules in the New York Convention. Lastly, there do not seem to me to be any grounds for doubting that a Member State has the power to impose criminal sanctions for failure to observe the national rules relating to the temporary importation of motor vehicles. In fact, once provisions such as the Italian ones have been recognized as being compatible with the principles of the Community system, it is within the powers of the Member States, in the appropriate circumstances, to make failure to observe such rules an offence.