Keywords

Summary



Keywords

1 Tax provisions - Harmonisation of laws - Taxes other than turnover taxes which affect the consumption of manufactured tobacco - Directive 79/32 - Cigarettes - Concept - Smoking tobacco - Concept

(Council Directive 79/32, Arts 3(1) and 4(1))

2 Community law - Infringement by a Member State - Implementation of a directive - Obligation to pay compensation for damage caused to individuals - Conditions

3 Tax provisions - Harmonisation of laws - Taxes other than turnover tax which affect the consumption of manufactured tobacco - Directive 79/32 - Rolls of tobacco wrapped in porous cellulose classified as cigarettes - Classification arising as a result of erroneous interpretation of the directive - Obligation to pay compensation for damage caused to individuals - Sufficiently serious breach - None

(Council Directive 79/32, Arts 3(1) and 4(1))

Summary

1 Articles 3(1) and 4(1) of Second Directive 79/32 on taxes other than turnover taxes which affect the consumption of manufactured tobacco, in the version in force in May 1990, are to be interpreted as meaning that rolls of tobacco wrapped in porous cellulose which have to be inserted into cigarette-paper tubes to be smoked must be deemed to be smoking tobacco within the meaning of Article 4(1) of that directive. Such rolls of tobacco, not being capable of being smoked as they are, do not correspond to the definition of a cigarette within the meaning of that directive.

2 Community law recognises a right to reparation for individuals who sustain damage as a result of a breach of Community law for which a Member State can be held responsible where three conditions are met: the rule of law infringed must be intended to confer rights on individuals; the breach must be sufficiently serious; and there must be a direct causal link between the breach of the obligation resting on the State and the damage sustained by the injured parties. Although failure to take any measure to transpose a directive in order to achieve the result it prescribes within the period laid down for that purpose constitutes per se a serious breach of Community law, it must be determined, where the national authorities gave immediate effect to the provisions of the directive, whether the authorities committed a sufficiently serious breach of those provisions, having regard to the degree of clarity and precision of those provisions.

3 A Member State whose authorities, in interpreting Articles 3(1) and 4(1) of Second Directive 79/32 on taxes other than turnover taxes which affect the consumption of manufactured tobacco, erroneously classified a product such as rolls of tobacco wrapped in porous cellulose as a cigarette and did not suspend the operation of the decision adopted, is not bound by Community law to compensate the manufacturer for the damage sustained by the latter as a result of that erroneous decision.

Since the relevant provisions of the directive are open to a number of perfectly tenable interpretations, the national authorities did not commit a sufficiently serious breach of those provisions since the interpretation given to them was not manifestly contrary to the wording of the directive or in particular to the aim pursued by it.