3.

The Danish Government's defence then emphasizes that the internal provisions on health inspection of groundnuts are applicable to imported and national products alike. Since Denmark does not produce groundnuts, the vaunted equality of treatment is in fact of form alone; moreover, it may be observed that the Court has held that it is not essential for a charge having an effect equivalent to a customs duty to be discriminatory for the prohibition in Article 9 to apply. In support of that interpretation (see the judgment of 1 July 1969 in Case 24/68, Commission v Italy, cited above, in particular at paragraph 9 of the decision, and the judgment of the same date in Joined Cases 2 and 3/69, Diamantarbeiders v Brachfeld and Chougol [1969] ECR 211, in particular paragraphs 17, 18, 24 and 25 of the decision) the fact that the prohibition in question is applied objectively, that is to say, irrespective of the existence or otherwise of competing products in the importing country, is in fact decisive. The truth is that in order to avoid that prohibition and to fall within the scope of Article 95, the charge must be part of a “general system of internal dues applied systematically to categories of products in accordance with objective criteria” regardless of the origin of the products (see, inter alia, the judgment of 28 January 1981 in Case 32/80 Officier van Justitie v Kortmann [1981] ECR 251, at paragraph 16 of the decision). Taat seems to me to be the nub of the dispute. Does the Danish charge form part of a general system of internal dues? Let us first ask ourselves what is meant by that expression. Many judgments of the Court give useful guidance on that point. I shall refer in the first place to the judgment of 3 February 1981 in Case 90/79, Commission v France, cited above, upon which the Danish defence relied heavily, maintaining that it could draw serious arguments from it in support of its own proposition. The question was whether a charge on imported products (in that case, reprographic machines) constituted not a charge having an effect equivalent to a customs duty but internal taxation within the meaning of Article 95. The Court investigated the whole body of legislation in France within the framework of which the measures relating to reprographic machines were applied and, in particular, all the internal rules designed to prevent the reprographic process from depriving authors and editors of the benefits guaranteed them by national laws on copyright. It seems to me obvious, therefore, that when it speaks of a “regime” or “general system”, the Court is contemplating a broad spectrum of rules within the context of which the charge is squarely situated. Other judgments give similar guidance. I refer to the judgment of 22 March 1977 in Case 78/76, Steinike und Weinlig v Germany ([1977] ECR 595). In that case the Court was asked to rule upon the nature of a contribution imposed on a broad category of products, for instance fruit and vegetable products; the Court stated that there may be said to be a “general system” where the internal taxation applies to “whole classes of domestic or foreign products which are all in the same position ho matter what their origin” (paragraph 30 of the decision). Nor does it seem to me possible to rely to the contrary, as the Danish defence does, on the two judgments of 4 April 1968 in Cases.27/67 Fink-Frucbt v Hauptzollamt München ([1968] ECR 223) and 31/67 Stier v Hauptzollamt Hamburg-Ericus ([1968] ECR 235). In each of those cases the disputed charge was levied as turnover tax, which is by definition a general tax. That seems to me to have been the decisive factor in the circumstances dealt with in those decisions. By contrast the fact that, in the absence of a corresponding national product, the duty concerned in those cases affected only imported products (vegetables or fruit which did not grow in the Federal Republic) is irrelevant to our case.