Hewlett-Packard Europe BV v Inspecteur van de Belastingdienst/Douane West, kantoor Hoofddorp.
Date: 2013-01-17
35. It should be observed as a preliminary point that, in the context of the procedure laid down by Article 267 TFEU providing for cooperation between national courts and the Court of Justice, it is for the latter to provide the national court with an answer which will be of use to it and enable it to determine the case before it. In that light, the Court may have to reformulate the questions referred to it (see, inter alia, Case C-334/95 Krüger [1997] ECR I-4517, paragraphs 22 and 23, and Case C-249/11 Byankov  [2012] ECR, paragraph 57).
39. Moreover, according to settled case-law, the Council has conferred upon the Commission, acting in cooperation with the customs experts of the Member States, a broad discretion to define the subject-matter of tariff headings falling to be considered for the classification of particular goods. However, the Commission’s power to adopt the measures mentioned in Article 9(1)(a), (b), (d) and (e) of Regulation No 2658/87 does not authorise it to alter the subject-matter of the tariff headings which have been defined on the basis of the HS established by the Convention whose scope the European Union has undertaken, under Article 3 thereof, not to modify (see Case C-267/94 France v Commission [1995] ECR I-4845, paragraphs 19 and 20; Case C-15/05 Kawasaki Motors Europe [2006] ECR I-3657, paragraph 35; and Joined Cases C-522/07 and C-65/08 Dinter and Europol Frost-Food [2009] ECR I-10333, paragraph 32).
46. It should be remembered, first of all, that according to the Court’s case-law, heading 9009 of the CN included, in addition to photocopiers incorporating an optical system and of the direct reproduction type, those which incorporated an intermediate for reproduction by the indirect process. In that case, reproduction by the indirect process was effected by converting the image into digital data (see, to that effect Case C-67/95 Rank Xerox [1997] ECR I-5401, paragraph 21).
47. The Court has also held that, since it classifies machines capable of performing printing, electronic scanning and reproduction operations under CN code 9009 12 00 on the ground that none of the functions corresponding to those operations can be regarded as giving those machines their essential character, without, in principle, requiring all machines having those three functions to be classified as photocopiers, the relevant Commission regulation was valid (see, to that effect, Kip Europe and Others , paragraph 62).
57. According to the Court’s settled case-law, given their nature and purpose, the WTO agreements are not in principle among the rules in the light of which the Court of Justice is to review the legality of measures adopted by the European Union institutions. It is only where the European Union intends to implement a particular obligation assumed in the context of the WTO or where the European Union measure refers expressly to specific provisions of the WTO agreements that the Court can review the legality of the measure at issue in the light of the WTO rules (see Case C-377/02 Van Parys [2005] ECR I-1465, paragraphs 39 and 40, and judgment of 10 November 2011 in Joined Cases C-319/10 and C-320/10 X and X , paragraph 35).
58. In any event, for the period prior to the expiry date of the reasonable period granted to the European Union in accordance with the DSU to comply with the recommendations or decisions of the DSB, the European Union Courts cannot conduct a review of the lawfulness of the European Union measures in the light of the WTO rules, without rendering that reasonable period ineffective (see, to that effect, Case C-93/02 P Biret International v Council [2003] ECR I-10497, paragraphs 61 and 62, and X and X , paragraph 41).