CELEX: 31977R2303
Language: en
Date: 1977-10-18 00:00:00
Title: Council Regulation (EEC) No 2303/77 of 18 October 1977 on the opening, allocation and administration of a Community tariff quota for ferro-silicon falling within subheading 73.02 C of the Common Customs Tariff (1978)

No L 269/ 6                        Official Journal of the European Communities                                 21 . 10. 77
                                   COUNCIL REGULATION (EEC) No 2303/77
                                                   of 18 October 1977
               on the opening, allocation and administration of a Community tariff quota for
               ferro-silicon falling within subheading 73.02 C of the Common Customs Tariff
                                                          ( 1978)
THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN                                                Benelux                            50-38
COMMUNITIES,                                                               Denmark                              0-76
                                                                           Germany                            29-98
                                                                           France                               0-50
                                                                           Ireland                              0-25
Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European
Economic Community, and in particular Article 1 1 3                        Italy                                4-28
thereof,                                                                   United Kingdom                      13-85
Having regard to the proposal from the Commission,                Whereas, to take account of future import trends foi
                                                                  the products concerned, the quota should be divided
                                                                  into two tranches, the first being allocated and the
                                                                  second held as a reserve to cover subsequently the
Whereas, as regards ferro-silicon falling within                  requirements of Member States which have exhausted
subheading 73.02 C, the European Economic Commu­                  their initial share ; whereas, to give importers some
nity has undertaken to open an annual nil duty tariff             degree of certainty, the first tranche of the tariff quota
quota of 20 000 tonnes ; whereas the tariff quota                 should be fixed at a high level, which could be 99 %
concerned should therefore be opened on 1 January                 of the amount of the quota ;
1978 and allocated among the Member States ;
                                                                  Whereas initial shares may be exhausted at different
Whereas arrangements for the utilization of the                   rates ; whereas to avoid disruption of supplies on this
Community tariff quota based on an allocation among               account it should be provided that any Member State
Member States would seem to be consistent with the                which has almost used up its initial share should draw
Community nature of the quota ; whereas, to corres­               an additional share from the reserve ; whereas each
pond as closely as possible to the actual trend of the            time    its  additional share    is almost exhausted     a
market in the product in question, allocation of the              Member State should draw a further share, and so on
quota should be in proportion to the requirements of              as many times as the reserve allows ; whereas the
the Member States as calculated by reference to statis­           initial and additional shares should be valid until the
tics of imports from third countries during a repre­              end of the quota period ; whereas this form of adminis­
sentative reference period and to the economic                    tration requires close collaboration between the
outlook for the quota period in question ;                        Member States and the Commission, and the Commis­
                                                                  sion must be in a position to keep account of the
                                                                  extent to which the quotas have been used up and to
Whereas, during the last three years for which statis­            inform the Member States accordingly ;
tics are available, the corresponding imports into each
of the Member States represented the following
percentages of their total imports of the product in              Whereas if at a given date in the quota period a
question :                                                        considerable quantity of a Member State's initial share
                              1974      1975       1976           remains unused, it is essential that that Member State
                                                                  should return a significant proportion thereof to the
Benelux                      1514      17-47      17-86           reserve in order to prevent a part of a quota from
Denmark                       0-36      0-54        0-59          remaining unused in one Member State while it could
Germany                      56 31     53-03      53-74           be used in others :
France                        0-52       1-22       1-58
Ireland                       0-24      0-25        0-22
Italy                        13-97     13-82      14-05           Whereas, since the Kingdom of Belgium, the
United Kingdom               13-46     13-67      1 1 96          Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Grand Duchy of
                                                                  Luxembourg are united within and jointly represented
Whereas, in view of these factors and of market fore­             by the Benelux Economic Union, any measure
casts for ferro-silicon for 1978 , the initial percentage         concerning the administration of the shares allocated
shares in the quota volume can be expressed roughly               to that economic union may be carried out by one of
as follows :                                                      its members,
 ---pagebreak--- 21 . 10 . 77                       Official Journal of the European Communities                         No L 269/7
HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION :                                manner and to the extent provided in paragraph 1 ,
                                                             draw a fourth share equal to the third.
                        Article 1                             It shall continue in this fashion until the reserve is
                                                              exhausted.
1.     For the period 1 January to 31 December 1978,
a Community tariff quota of 20 000 tonnes shall be            4. By way of derogation from paragraphs 1 to 3, a
opened within the Community in respect of ferro­              Member State may draw shares lower than those speci­
silicon falling within subheading 73.02 C of the              fied in those paragraphs if there are grounds for
Common Customs Tariff.                                        believing that those specified may not be used in full.
                                                              Any Member State applying this paragraph shall
2. Imports of the product in question may not be              inform the Commission of its grounds for so doing.
charged against this tariff quota if they are already free
of customs duties under other preferential tariff treat­
ment.                                                                                  Article 4
3 . Within this quota, Common Customs Tariff                  Additional shares drawn pursuant to Article 3 shall be
duty shall be totally suspended.                              valid until 31 December 1978 .
                         Article 2                                                     Article 5
 1.    The Community tariff quota referred to in              Member States shall, not later than 1 October 1978 ,
Article 1 shall be divided into two tranches .                return to the reserve the unused portion of their initial
                                                              share which, on 15 September 1978 is in excess of
2.     A first tranche of 19 850 tonnes shall be allo­        20 % of the initial volume. They may return a greater
cated among the Member States ; the shares, which             portion if there are grounds for believing that it may
subject to Article 5 shall be valid from 1 January until      not be used in full .
31 December 1978, shall be as follows :
                                                              Member States shall, not later than 1 October 1978,
                                           (tonnes)           notify the Commission of the total quantities of the
          Benelux                           10 000
                                                               product in question imported up to and including 15
          Denmark                              1 50
                                                              September 1978 and charged against the Community
          Germany                            5 950            quota and of any portion of these initial shares
          France                               100             returned to the reserve .
          Ireland                                50
          Italy                                850
          United Kingdom                     2 750                                     Article 6
 3.    The second tranche of 150 tonnes shall consti­          Member States may restrict the possibility of charging
 tute a reserve .
                                                               against their quotas to certain intended uses. In that
                                                               case the Community provisions on <:he matter shall be
                         Article 3
                                                               applied for checking that the product has been so
                                                               used .
 1.    As soon as a Member State has used 90 % or
 more of its initial share as fixed in Article 2 (2), or of
 that share minus any portion returned to the reserve                                  Article 7
 pursuant to Article 5, it shall forthwith, by notifying
 the Commission , draw a second share, to the extent           The Commission shall keep an account of the shares
 that the reserve so permits, equal to 5 % of its initial      opened by the Member States pursuant to Articles 2
 share rounded up as necessary to the next whole               and 3 and shall, as soon as the information reaches it,
 number.                                                       inform each State of the extent to which the reserve
                                                               has been used up.
 2.    As soon as a Member State, after exhausting its
 initial share, has used 90 % or more of the second            It shall , not later than 5 October 1978 , inform the
 share draw by it, that Member State shall forthwith, in       Member States of the amount still in reserve,
 the manner and to the extent provided in paragraph 1 ,        following any return of shares pursuant to Article 5.
 draw a third share equal to 2-5 % of its initial share
 rounded up as necessary to the next whole number.             It shall ensure that when an amount exhausting the
                                                               reserve is drawn the amount so drawn does not exceed
 3.     As soon as a Member State, after exhausting its        the balance available, and to this end shall notify the
 second share , has used 90 % or more of the third             amount of that balance to the Member State making
 share drawn by it, that Member State shall, in the            the last drawing.
 ---pagebreak--- No L 269/ 8                      Official Journal of the European Communities                          21 . 10. 77
                       Article 8                                                   Article 9
1.   The Member States shall take all appropriate            At the request of the Commission, the Member States
measures   to   ensure that  additional  shares  drawn       shall inform it of importations charged against their
pursuant to Article 3 are opened in such a way that          shares.
importations may be charged without interruption
against their accumulated shares of the Community                                  Article 10
quota.
                                                             The Member States and the Commission shall coop­
2. The Member States shall ensure that importers
of the product in question established in their terri­       erate closely to ensure that this Regulation is
tory have free access to the shares allocated to them.       complied with .
3.   The extent to which the Member States have                                    Article 11
used up their shares shall be determined on the basis
of the importations of the products in question              This Regulation shall enter into force on 1 January
entered with the customs authorities for home use .          1978 .
              This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member
              States .
              Done at Luxembourg, 18 October 1977.
                                                                        For the Council
                                                                         The President
                                                                          H. SIMONET