VAEX Varkens- en Veehandel BV v Productschap Vee en Vlees.
Date: 2014-10-16
31. Given that Article 4 of Regulation No 612/2009 is included in the part of the general provisions of that regulation relating to entitlement to refunds, it must be observed that the Court has held, so far as concerns Article 3 of Commission Regulation (EEC) No 3665/87 of 27 November 1987 laying down common detailed rules for the application of the system of export refunds on agricultural products (OJ 1987 L 351, p. 1), the content of which corresponds to Article 5 of Regulation No 612/2009 and which is part of the same general provisions, that the information referred to in Article 3 of Regulation No 3665/87 is used not only in the calculation of the exact amount of the refund but rather, and above all, to ascertain whether a right to that refund exists or not and to trigger the system of checks of the request for refund (judgment in Dachsberger & Söhne , C‑77/08, EU:C:2009:172, paragraph 24 and the case-law cited).
49. However, the Court has previously held that exportation, for the purposes of Regulation No 612/2009, is a customs procedure and that the general provisions of the Customs Code apply to all export declarations relating to goods qualifying for export refunds, without prejudice to special rules (see, to that effect, judgment in Nowaco Germany , Case C‑353/04, EU:C:2006:522, paragraphs 45 to 47). A post-clearance regularisation of the export declaration could therefore be based on Article 78 of the Customs Code (see, to that effect, judgment in Südzucker and Others , EU:C:2012:444, paragraph 46).
50. In the second place, with regard to the scope of Article 78 of the Customs Code, the Court has already stated that its rationale is to bring the customs procedure into line with the actual situation (judgment in Terex Equipment and Others , Cases C‑430/08 and C‑431/08, EU:C:2010:15, paragraph 56). Moreover, that article does not distinguish errors or omissions that can be corrected from other situations of the same kind that cannot (judgments in Overland Footwear , C‑468/03, EU:C:2005:624, paragraph 63, and Südzucker and Others , EU:C:2012:444, paragraph 47). The words ‘incorrect or incomplete information’ must be interpreted as covering both clerical errors or omissions and errors of interpretation of the applicable law (judgments in Overland Footwear , EU:C:2005:624, paragraph 63, and Terex Equipment and Others , EU:C:2010:15, paragraph 56).
53. However, the customs authorities, in the assessment they make on that occasion, are to take into account, in particular, the possibility of reviewing the statements contained in the declaration to be amended and in the application for amendment (judgments in Overland Footwear , EU:C:2005:624, paragraph 47, and Terex Equipment and Others , EU:C:2010:15, paragraph 59).
54. Thus, if the amendment indicates that the objectives of the legislation at issue are not threatened, particularly in that the goods for which the export declaration was submitted were actually exported and sufficient evidence available to the competent authorities allows the connection between the quantity exported and the licence actually covering the export to be established, the customs authorities must, in accordance with Article 78(3) of the Customs Code, take the measures necessary to regularise the situation, taking account of the information available to them (see, to that effect, judgments in Overland Footwear , EU:C:2005:624, paragraph 52, and Terex Equipment and Others , EU:C:2010:15, paragraph 62).