Keywords

Summary



Keywords

1. Free movement of goods – Customs duties – Charges having equivalent effect – Rules laid down in the Treaty

(Arts 23 EC, 25 EC and 90 EC)

2. Tax provisions – Internal taxation – Provisions of the Treaty – Scope

(Art. 90 EC)

3. Tax provisions – Internal taxation – Provisions of the Treaty – Scope

(Art. 90 EC)

4. Tax provisions – Internal taxation – Prohibition of discrimination between imported products and similar domestic products

(Art. 90 EC)

5. Environment – Waste – Regulation No 259/93 on shipments of waste

(Council Regulation No 259/93, Art. 4(3)(a)(i) and (b)(i))

Summary

1. The Treaty provisions relating to charges having equivalent effect and those relating to discriminatory internal taxation cannot be applied together, so that under the system of the Treaty the same measure cannot belong to both categories at the same time.

(see para. 26)

2. Waste for disposal comes within the definition of ‘products’ within the meaning of Article 90 EC. Even if it has no intrinsic commercial value, it may none the less give rise to commercial transactions in relation to the disposal or deposit thereof. Internal taxation imposed on that waste is such as to render more difficult or more burdensome those commercial transactions for an operator who seeks to dispose of that waste and, therefore, is liable to constitute a disguised restriction on the free movement of that waste, a restriction that Article 90 EC is specifically intended to preclude in cases of discriminatory treatment of imported waste.

(see paras 36, 38)

3. Article 90 EC applies to internal taxation which is imposed on the use of imported products where those products are essentially intended for such use and have been imported solely for that purpose. Furthermore, a charge which is imposed not on products as such, but on the specific activity of an undertaking in connection with products and which is calculated according, inter alia, to the weight of the products at issue, falls within the scope of Article 90 EC and, in so far as it has an immediate effect on the cost of national and imported products, must be applied in a manner which is not discriminatory to imported products. Since the only commercial transactions to which waste for disposal may give rise are those relating to its disposal or deposit, the appropriate criterion for the purposes of assessing any restrictions on the free movement of such goods is the effect of the levy on the price paid by economic operators to dispose of them.

(see paras 41, 43)

4. The first paragraph of Article 90 EC precludes a national tax provision which exempts from the levy imposed on the long-term depositing of waste at waste disposal sites in the Member State concerned deposits of waste derived from the rehabilitation or safeguarding of disused hazardous sites or suspected contaminated sites located in that Member State alone, but excludes exemption of deposits of waste derived from the rehabilitation or safeguarding of sites located in other Member States.

Although, as it now stands, Community law does not restrict the freedom of each Member State to establish a tax system which differentiates between certain products, even products which are similar within the meaning of the first paragraph of Article 90 EC, on the basis of objective criteria, such differentiation is compatible with Community law only if it pursues objectives which are themselves compatible with the requirements of the Treaty and its secondary legislation, and if the detailed rules are such as to avoid any form of discrimination, direct or indirect, against imports from other Member States or any form of protection of competing domestic products. Such a tax provison is liable to lead, in certain cases, to higher taxation being imposed on imported products than on domestic products. Moreover, the difference of origin between domestic waste and waste imported from other Member States is not sufficient to preclude their similarity for the purposes of the first paragraph of Article 90 EC.

Such a difference in treatment cannot be justified by the material impossibility of identifying disused hazardous sites or suspected contaminated sites in other Member States, since practical difficulties cannot justify the application of internal taxation which discriminates against products from other Member States. Moreover, even if, in principle, Article 90 EC does not require Member States to abolish differences which are objectively justified and which national legislation establishes between internal taxes on domestic products, it is otherwise where such abolition is the only way of avoiding direct or indirect discrimination against the imported products.

(see paras 56-57, 60, 70, 72-73, operative part)

5. Once a Member State has refrained from taking measures to prohibit generally or partially or to object systematically, as provided for in Article 4(3)(a)(i) of Regulation No 259/93 on the supervision and control of shipments of waste within, into and out of the European Community, and has not raised any reasoned objections to a shipment of waste, as provided for in Article 4(3)(b)(i), it cannot impose restrictions or limitations on the free movement in its territory of shipped waste on the basis of the principles of proximity and self‑sufficiency at Community and national levels, since the conditions and procedures established by Regulation No 259/93 in respect of shipments of waste between Member States were themselves adopted with a view to ensuring the protection of the environment, taking account of those principles.

(see paras 64, 67)