Case C‑574/17 P

European Commission

v

Combaro SA

(Appeal — Customs union — Regulation (EEC) No 2913/92 — Article 239 — Remission of import duties — Import of linen fabrics from Latvia between 1999 and 2002 — Special situation — Supervision and monitoring obligations — Corruption alleged of the customs authorities — Inauthentic movement certificate — Mutual trust)

Summary — Judgment of the Court (Third Chamber), 25 July 2018

Own resources of the European Union — Repayment or remission of import or export duties — Existence of a special situation — Notification, in the context of administrative cooperation, of the results of verification by the authorities of the Member State of exportation to the Commission — Non-binding character of that notification — Commission decision based on the ex-post control of EUR.1 movement certificates carried out by the authorities of the State of exportation — Inadequate monitoring by the Commission of the proper implementation of the EEC-Latvia Association Agreement — Absence

(Protocol 3 of the Association Agreement EEC- Latvia, Arts 17 and 32; Council Regulation No 2913/92, Art. 239)

The system of administrative cooperation established by a protocol stating, in an annex to an agreement between the European Union and a non-member State, the rules concerning the origin of goods is based on mutual trust between the authorities of the importing Member States and those of the exporting State. Consequently, with regard more particularly to the post-clearance check of the EUR.1 certificates issued by the exporting country, the findings and determinations legally made by the authorities of that latter country apply, in principle, to the authorities of the Member State of import. Those principles are entirely relevant as regards the application of the Association Agreement between the European Communities and their Member States, on the one hand, and the Republic of Latvia, on the other hand, and must, moreover, be transposed, mutatis mutandis, to the relations between the Commission and the customs authorities of the country of export where that institution decides on the authenticity of movement certificates, in order to assess the existence of a special situation for the purposes of Article 239 of Regulation No 2913/92 establishing the Community Customs Code.

The trust thus bestowed on the authorities of the country of export does not mean that the Commission cannot, in any case, be called upon to conduct investigations into the authenticity of movement certificates. Therefore, the Court held that the Commission should have taken concrete measures to verify the authenticity of those certificates and that a failure in that regard could constitute a special situation. However, that solution was upheld in very specific circumstances, relating to the fact that the customs authorities of the country of export had formulated assessments concerning those certificates which were ambiguous and inconsistent. By contrast, that trust cannot be called into question on the basis of an assessment of one element of the certificates at issue, such as the stamp imprints on those certificates. Moreover, the fact that the findings of the customs authorities of the country of export are limited to brief assertions and that it is not established that a subsequent confirmation was the result of new investigations cannot render the positions adopted by those authorities devoid of value, since that Association Agreement does not provide for any particular formalities in that regard and the customs authorities of the Union are bound by the results of a post-clearance check, even where those results are sent without any reasoning or in the form of a signature on a record drawn up by the European Anti-Fraud Office following an investigation.

(see paras 50-53, 57 ‑59, 72, 76)