Keywords

Summary



Keywords

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1. Acts of the institutions ° Temporal application ° Rules of procedure ° Application to disputes pending at the time when they enter into force

2. Acts of the institutions ° Statment of reasons ° Obligation ° Scope

(EEC Treaty, Art. 190)

3. Own resources of the European Communities ° Repayment or remission of import duties ° Article 13 of Regulation No 1430/79 ° Scope

(Council Regulation No 1430/79, Art. 13)

4. Own resources of the European Communities ° Repayment or remission of import duties ° Article 13 of Regulation No 1430/79 ° Commission decision on an application submitted by a Member State ° Adoption procedure ° Procedure guaranteeing the economic agent' s rights of defence

(Council Regulation No 1430/79, Art. 13)

5. Actions for annulment ° Annulment decision ° Determination of the implications for the national authorities' obligations ° Not part of the Court' s jurisdiction

(EEC Treaty, Arts 173 and 174)

Summary

1. Procedural rules are generally held to apply to all proceedings pending at the time when they enter into force, whereas substantive rules are usually interpreted as not applying to situations existing before their entry into force.

2. The statement of reasons required by Article 190 of the Treaty must disclose clearly and unequivocally the reasoning followed by the adopting body in such a way as to allow the persons concerned to ascertain the reasons for the measure and thus enable them to defend their rights, and to enable the Court to exercise its review. It cannot, however, be required that the statement should go into all the relevant factual and legal points. The question whether the statement of grounds for a decision meets those requirements must be assessed with regard not only to its wording but also to the context of the decision and to all the legal rules governing the matter in question.

3. The sole purpose of the general equity clause contained in Article 13 of Regulation No 1430/79 is to enable importers, when certain special conditions are satisfied and in the absence of negligence or deception, to be exempted from payment of duties from them and not to enable them to contest the actual principle of an amount being due. An argument to the effect that a decision of the national authorities, subjected to review by the national courts, under which an importer is found liable to pay duties is unlawful cannot therefore be relied on in order to contest before the Community court the legality of a Commission decision refusing the benefit of that article.

4. Within the framework of Article 13 of Regulation 1430/79, the procedure for adoption by the Commission of decisions on the repayment or remission of import duties, which comprises several stages, some of which take place at national level (submission of the application by the undertaking concerned, preliminary examination of the application by the customs authorties) and some at Community level (submission of the application to the Commission, examination of it by the Committee on Duty-Free Arrangements, consultation of a group of experts, decision by the Commission, notification to the Member State concerned), affords the persons concerned all the necessary legal safeguards, in particular that of audi alteram partem, which represents the defence' s most essential right, provided that it is conducted in accordance with the requirements of the Community rules.

5. Pursuant to Article 173 of the Treaty, which establishes the conditions for the admissibility of an action for annulment, the Court has jurisdiction to review the legality of acts of the Council and of the Commission. If the action is well founded, under Articles 174 of the Treaty the Court is to declare the act concerned void, but it is not for the Court to rule on the question of the obligations of the national authorities, even though they acted in implementation of the annulled Community act.