Decision of the EEA Joint Committee No 114/2000 of 22 December 2000 amending Protocol 4 to the EEA Agreement on rules of origin
Date: 2000-12-22
Institutions: EEA Joint Committee
Subjects: European Economic Area, originating product, tariff nomenclature

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Official Journal of the European Communities

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DECISION OF THE EEA JOINT COMMITTEE

No 114/2000

of 22 December 2000

amending Protocol 4 to the EEA Agreement on rules of origin

THE EEA JOINT COMMITTEE,

Having regard to the Agreement on the European Economic Area, as adjusted by the Protocol adjusting the
Agreement on the European Economic Area, hereinafter referred to as ‘the Agreement’, and in particular
Article 98 thereof,

Whereas:

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

Protocol 4 to the Agreement was amended by Decision No 188/1999 of the EEA Joint Committee of
17 December 1999 (1).

Some technical amendments are in order to correct anomalies between the different language
versions of the text.

The list of insufficient working and processing needs to be amended to ensure proper interpretation
and to take account of the need to include some operations not covered previously by this list.

The need has arisen to provide for a system of accounting segregation of originating and non-origin-
ating materials, subject to authorisation by customs authorities.

The provisions concerning the amounts expressed in euro need to be revised in order to clarify the
procedure and to provide greater stability for the level of the amounts in national currencies.

To take account of the lack of production of a certain material within the countries concerned, a
correction must be made to the list of working and processing requirements which non-originating
materials have to fulfil to qualify for originating status,

HAS DECIDED AS FOLLOWS:

Protocol 4 to the Agreement shall be amended as follows:

1. Article 1(i) shall be replaced by:

Article 1

‘(i) “added value” shall be taken to be the ex-works price minus the customs value of each of the
materials incorporated which originate in the other countries referred to in Article 3 or, where the
customs value is not known or cannot be ascertained, the first verifiable price paid for the materials
in the EEA;’

2. Article 6 shall be replaced by:

‘Article 6

Insufficient working or processing operations

1. Without prejudice to paragraph 2, the following operations shall be considered as insufficient
working or processing to confer the status of originating products, whether or not the requirements of
Article 5 are satisfied:

(a) preserving operations to ensure that the products remain in good condition during transport and

storage;

(b) breaking-up and assembly of packages;

(c) washing, cleaning; removal of dust, oxide, oil, paint or other coverings;

(d) ironing or pressing of textiles;

(e) simple painting and polishing operations;

(1) Not yet published in the Official Journal.

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(f) husking, partial or total bleaching, polishing, and glazing of cereals and rice;

(g) operations to colour sugar or form sugar lumps;

(h) peeling, stoning and shelling of fruits, nuts and vegetables;

(i) sharpening, simple grinding or simple cutting;

(j) sifting, screening, sorting, classifying, grading, matching (including the making-up of sets of

articles);

(k) simple placing in bottles, cans, flasks, bags, cases, boxes, fixing on cards or boards and all other

simple packaging operations;

(l) affixing or printing marks, labels, logos and other like distinguishing signs on products or their

packaging;

(m) simple mixing of products, whether or not of different kinds;

(n) simple assembly of parts of articles to constitute a complete article or disassembly of products into

parts;

(o) a combination of two or more operations specified in subparagraphs (a) to (n);

(p) slaughter of animals.

All operations carried out in the EEA on a given product shall be considered together when
2.
determining whether the working or processing undergone by that product is to be regarded as
insufficient within the meaning of paragraph 1.’

3. The following Article shall be inserted after Article 19:

‘Article 19a

Accounting segregation

1. Where considerable cost or material difficulties arise in keeping separate stocks of originating and
non-originating materials which are identical and interchangeable, the customs authorities may, at the
written request of those concerned, authorise the “accounting segregation” method to be used for
managing such stocks.

2.
This method must be able to ensure that, for a specific reference-period, the number of products
obtained which could be considered as “originating” is the same as that which would have been obtained
if there had been physical segregation of the stocks.

The customs authorities may grant such authorisation, subject to any conditions deemed appro-

3.
priate.

This method is recorded and applied on the basis of the general accounting principles applicable in

4.
the country where the product was manufactured.

5.
The beneficiary of this facilitation may issue or apply for proofs of origin, as the case may be, for
the quantity of products which may be considered as originating. At the request of the customs
authorities, the beneficiary shall provide a statement of how the quantities have been managed.

6.
The customs authorities shall monitor the use made of the authorisation and may withdraw it at
any time whenever the beneficiary makes improper use of the authorisation in any manner whatsoever
or fails to fulfil any of the other conditions laid down in this Protocol.’

4. In Article 21, paragraph 1, first sentence, the following shall be inserted after ‘exporter’:

‘hereinafter referred to as “approved exporter”,’

5. Article 30 shall be replaced by:

‘Article 30

Amounts expressed in euro

1.
For the application of the provisions of Article 20(1)(b) and Article 25(3) in cases where products
are invoiced in a currency other than euro, amounts in the national currencies of the countries referred
to in Article 3 equivalent to the amounts expressed in euro shall be fixed annually by each of the
countries concerned.

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A consignment shall benefit from the provisions of Article 20(1)(b) or Article 25(3) by reference to
2.
the currency in which the invoice is drawn up, according to the amount fixed by the country concerned.

3.
The amounts to be used in any given national currency shall be the equivalent in that currency of
the amounts expressed in euro as at the first working day of October. The amounts shall be communi-
cated to the European Commission by 15 October and shall apply from 1 January the following year.
The European Commission shall notify all countries concerned of the relevant amounts.

4.
A country may round up or down the amount resulting from the conversion into its national
currency of an amount expressed in euro. The rounded-off amount may not differ from the amount
resulting from the conversion by more than 5 per cent. A country may retain unchanged its national
currency equivalent of an amount expressed in euro if, at the time of the annual adjustment provided for
in paragraph 3, the conversion of that amount, prior to any rounding-off, results in an increase of less
than 15 per cent in the national currency equivalent. The national currency equivalent may be retained
unchanged if the conversion would result in a decrease in that equivalent value.

5.
The amounts expressed in euro shall be reviewed by the EEA Joint Committee at the request of the
Contracting Parties. When carrying out this review, the EEA Joint Committee shall consider the
desirability of preserving the effects of the limits concerned in real terms. For this purpose, it may decide
to modify the amounts expressed in euro.’

6. Annex II shall be amended as follows:

The entry for HS heading 5309 to 5311 shall be replaced by:

‘5309 to 5311

Woven fabrics of other vegetable
textile fibres; woven fabrics of
paper yarn:

— Incorporating rubber thread

Manufacture from single yarn (1)

— Other

Manufacture from (1):
— coir yarn,
— jute yarn,
— natural fibres,
— man-made staple fibres not
carded or combed or other-
wise prepared for spinning,
— chemical materials or textile

pulp, or

— paper

or

raising,
resistance

Printing accompanied by at least
finishing
two preparatory or
scouring,
operations
(such as
bleaching, mercerising,
heat
calendering,
setting,
processing,
shrink
finishing, decatising,
permanent
impregnating, mending
and
burling) where the value of the
unprinted fabric does not exceed
47,5 % of the ex-works price of
the product

(1) For special conditions relating to products made of a mixture of textile materials, see Introductory Note 5.’

Article 2

This Decision shall enter into force on 1 January 2001, provided that all the notifications under Article
103(1) of the Agreement have been made to the EEA Joint Committee (*).

(*) No constitutional requirements indicated.

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This Decision shall be published in the EEA section of, and in the EEA Supplement to, the Official Journal of
the European Communities.

Article 3

Done at Brussels, 22 December 2000.

For the EEA Joint Committee

The President

G. S. GUNNARSSON