CELEX: C1999/136/13
Language: en
Date: 1999-05-15 00:00:00
Title: Case C-69/99: Action brought on 26 February 1999 by the Commission of the European Communities against the United Kingdom

C 136/8                EN                   Official Journal of the European Communities                                     15.5.1999
3. If Question 1 is answered in the negative or Question 2 in          Pleas in law and main arguments
    the affirmative:
    Is Article 203(1) of the Customs Code to be construed as           Article 4(1) of the Directive imposes two obligations. Firstly,
    meaning that there is a removal from customs supervision           Member States must propose a list of sites designated as special
    where the non-Community goods declared for release into            areas of conservation and, secondly, they must transmit this
    free circulation are removed from the prescribed place of          list to the Commission, together with the relevant information
    storage/examination and consequently from the local area           on these sites.
    for which the customs office in question is responsible,
    even though the customs office had ordered a customs               The Commission submits that Ireland has proposed no site in
    examination?                                                       respect of 26 of the habitat types of Annex I of the Directive
                                                                       and 20 of Annex II in Ireland. In particular, Ireland has
4. If Question 3 is answered in the negative:                          proposed no sites for certain priority habitat types and species
    Is Article 204(1) of the Customs Code to be construed as           which have a significant presence on Ireland’s territory.
    meaning that the unauthorised removal of the goods from
    their place of storage has had ‘no significant effect’ on the      The Commission also draws attention to the fact that, for
    correct operation of the temporary storage if, after their         some habitat types and species, the competent Irish authority
    removal, the goods could, on request, have been presented          has communicated an intention of not proposing any site. The
    at another customs office?                                         Commission considers that such an exclusion from site
                                                                       proposal of natural habitat types and species is contrary to the
5. Can there be no question of a customs debt on importation           requirements of Article 4(1) of the Directive.
    being incurred
    (a) under Article 201(1)(a), in conjunction with Article           Secondly, the Commission concludes that, in the case of
        201(2), of the Customs Code, where the customs                 certain habitat types and species habitats, the number of sites
        declaration is simply accepted by the customs office,          definitively proposed by Ireland is manifestly insufficient in
        or                                                             the light of the criteria listed in Annex III and in view of the
                                                                       conservation objective pursued by the Directive. The natural
    (b) under Article 203(1) of the Customs Code, or                   importance of such habitats requires both that a larger number
                                                                       of sites be proposed and that the distribution of these sites be
    (c) under Article 204 of the Customs Code,
                                                                       more evenly balanced over the national territory as a whole.
        if formally unobjectionable certificates of origin corres-
        ponding to Form A were attached to the customs
        declaration accepted by the customs office and the             (1) OJ L 206, 22.7.1992, p. 7.
        preferential tariff rate ‘free’ applied to the goods
        covered by the declaration?
                                                                       Action brought on 26 February 1999 by the Commission
Action brought on 25 February 1999 by the Commission                   of the European Communities against the United
       of the European Communities against Ireland                                                  Kingdom
                         (Case C-67/99)
                                                                                                (Case C-69/99)
                        (1999/C 136/12)
                                                                                               (1999/C 136/13)
An action against Ireland was brought before the Court of
Justice of the European Communities on 25 February 1999 by             An action against the United Kingdom was brought before the
the Commission of the European Communities, represented                Court of Justice of the European Communities on 26 February
by Mr Richard Wainwright, Principal Legal Adviser, and Mr              1999 by the Commission of the European Communities,
Paolo Stancanelli, member of the Legal Service, acting as              represented by Mr Richard Wainwright, Principal Legal
agents, with an address for service in Luxembourg at the office        Adviser, acting as agent, with an address for service in
of Mr Carlos Gómez de la Cruz, member of the Legal Service            Luxembourg at the office of Mr Carlos Gómez de la Cruz,
of the Commission, Centre Wagner.                                      member of the Legal Service of the Commission, Centre
                                                                       Wagner.
The Applicant claims that the Court should:
— declare that, by failing to transmit to the Commission the           The Applicant claims that the Court should:
    full list of sites mentioned in the first subparagraph of
    Article 4(1) of Council Directive 92/43/EEC (1) of 21 May          — declare that, by failing to adopt all the measures necessary
    1992 on the conservation of natural habitats and of wild                to comply with its obligations under Article 3(1) and (2),
    fauna and flora, together with the information on each site             and under Article 5 of Council Directive 91/676/EEC (1) of
    required by the second paragraph of Article 4(1) of the                 12 December 1991 concerning the protection of waters
    said Directive, Ireland has failed to fulfil its obligations            against pollution of nitrates from agricultural sources, the
    under the Directive;                                                    United Kingdom has failed to fulfil its obligations under
                                                                            that Directive and under the Treaty establishing the
— order Ireland to bear the costs.                                          European Community;
 ---pagebreak--- 15.5.1999              EN                    Official Journal of the European Communities                                           C 136/9
— order the United Kingdom to pay the costs.                            Pleas in law and main arguments
Pleas in law and main arguments                                         The differences in the amounts payable by way of the passenger
                                                                        services tax and insurance tax at issue must be considered in
                                                                        the light of Community law, in particular of the provisions of
According to Article 3(1), waters affected by pollution and
                                                                        Regulation (EEC) No 2408/92 and of the principle of freedom
waters which could be affected by pollution if action pursuant
                                                                        to provide services enshrined in the Treaty and in particular in
to Article 5 of the Directive is not taken, shall be identified by
                                                                        Article 59 thereof. From the point of view of the single market,
the Member States in accordance with the criteria set out in
                                                                        that freedom under Article 59 precludes the application of any
Annexe I.
                                                                        legislation which has as its effect to make it more difficult to
                                                                        provide services between Member States than to provide
It appears that only surface waters intended for the abstraction        services exclusively within one Member State (see Case
of drinking water were identified in accordance with Article            C-288/89 Stichting Collectieve Antennevoorziening Gouda v Com-
3(1), whilst the Directive requires that surface freshwaters not        missariaat voor de Media 1991 ECR I-4007). The applicant
intended or used for the abstraction of drinking water, which           claims that it is clear, not only in terms of Regulation (EEC)
contain or could contain excessive concentrations of nitrates,          No 2408/92 but also of Article 7a of the EC Treaty and its
must be identified.                                                     express reference to Article 84, which is the legal basis for the
                                                                        Regulation, that freedom to provide air transport services
It also appears that only groundwaters’ sources were identified         within the Community is an integral part of such a single
in accordance with Article 3(1), whilst the Directive requires          market. Article 59 has primacy over the application of national
that all groundwaters which contain more than 50 mg/l                   legislation, unless the latter is justified on grounds of overriding
nitrates or could contain more than 50 mg/l nitrates if action          reasons relating to the public interest and does not go beyond
pursuant to Article 5 is not taken, must be identified.                 that which is necessary in order to achieve the objective
                                                                        pursued. In the Commission’s view, the justifications claimed
                                                                        by the Portuguese authorities for the measures under consider-
(1) OJ L 375, 31.12.1991, p. 1.                                         ation do not fulfil any of the above conditions.
                                                                        (1) OJ L 240, 24.8.1992, p. 1.
Action brought on 26 February 1999 by the Commission
of the European Communities against the Portuguese
                             Republic
                                                                        Reference for a preliminary ruling from the Landesverga-
                          (Case C-70/99)                                beamt Tirol by order of that tribunal of 17 February 1999
                                                                        in the case of Ortner GmbH v Innsbrucker Kommunal-
                         (1999/C 136/14)                                                            betriebe AG
An action against the Portuguese Republic was brought                                             (Case C-72/99)
before the Court of Justice of the European Communities on
26 February 1999 by the Commission of the European
Communities, represented by Frank Benyon, Legal Adviser,                                         (1999/C 136/15)
and Francisco de Sousa Fialho, of its Legal Service, acting as
Agents, with an address for service in Luxembourg at the office         Reference has been made to the Court of Justice of the
of Carlos Gómez de la Cruz, of its Legal Service, Wagner               European Communities by an order of the Landesvergabeamt
Centre, Kirchberg.                                                      Tirol (Procurement Office of the Land of Tyrol), Austria, of
                                                                        17 February 1999, which was received at the Court Registry
The applicant claims that the Court should:                             on 2 March 1999, for a preliminary ruling in the case of
                                                                        Ortner GmbH v Innsbrucker Kommunalbetriebe AG on the
— Declare that, by maintaining in force under Article 10 of             following questions:
     Implementing Decree No 38/91 of 29 July 1991 a system
     whereby flights from Portugal to other Member States are           A. Are the Member States, in transposing Directive
     liable to taxes in excess of those applicable to domestic              89/665/EEC (1), obliged by Article 2(6) thereof to ensure
     flights and by maintaining in force a provision by way of              that the contracting authority’s decision prior to con-
     Decree-Law No 102/91 of 8 March 1991, as implemented                   clusion of the contract as to which tenderer in an award
     by subsequent relevant Implementing Orders, that flights               procedure it will, on the basis of the results of that
     from Portugal to other Member States are liable to payment             procedure, conclude the contract with (in other words, the
     of taxes in excess of those payable in respect of certain              award decision) is, despite the possibility of restricting
     domestic flights, the Portuguese Republic has failed to fulfil         the legal effect of the review procedure following the
     its obligations under Article 3(1) of Council Regulation               conclusion of the contract to the award of damages, in all
     (EEC) No 2408/92 (1);                                                  cases amenable to proceedings whereby an applicant may
                                                                            have that decision annulled if the relevant conditions are
— Order the Portuguese Republic to pay the costs.                           met?