European Commission v Federal Republic of Germany.
Date: 2010-07-01
70. That system is based on a division of responsibilities together with mutual trust between the authorities of the Member State concerned and those of the Republic of Hungary (see, to that effect, Sfakianakis , paragraph 21).
72. The system of administrative cooperation put in place by Protocol 4 can, however, function only if the customs authorities of the State of import accept the determinations legally made by the authorities of the State of export (see Sfakianakis , paragraph 23).
73. In that regard, the authorities of the State of import must accept the validity of the EUR.1 certificates, attesting to the Hungarian origin of goods (see, in that regard, Sfakianakis , paragraph 37). Moreover, the authorities of the Member State of importation must accept the findings made by the Hungarian authorities in a subsequent verification.
76. The Member States are thus required to establish the Communities’ entitlement to own resources as soon as their customs authorities are in a position to calculate the amount of duties arising from a customs debt and determine the debtor (see, to that effect, Case C-392/02 Commission  v Denmark  [2005] ECR I-9811, paragraph 61). Those Member States are accordingly required to take the duties into account on the conditions laid down in Article 6 of Regulation No 1552/89 (see Case C-312/04 Commission  v Netherlands  [2006] ECR I-9923, paragraph 61).
82. As the Advocate General observed in point 66 of her Opinion, the fact that it was the Commission and not the German authorities which requested the verification carried out by the Hungarian authorities in no way affects the obligation of the authorities of the importing State to abide by the outcome of that verification. As the Court held in paragraph 31 of Sfakianakis , that verification may be carried out, not only at the request of the authorities of the State of importation, but also at the request of the services of the Commission, which, pursuant to Article 211 EC, is charged with ensuring the proper application of the EEC-Hungary Association Agreement and its protocols.
86. It is against that background that the Court held, in paragraph 43 of Sfakianakis , that the effectiveness of the abolition of the imposition of customs duties under the EEC-Hungary Association Agreement precludes administrative decisions imposing the payment of customs duties, taxes and penalties taken by the customs authorities of the State of import before the definitive result of actions brought against the findings of the subsequent verification have been communicated to them, when the decisions of the authorities of the State of export which initially issued the EUR.1 certificates have not been revoked or cancelled.
93. The Court has consistently held that there is an inseparable link between the obligation to establish the Communities’ own resources, the obligation to credit them to the Commission’s account within the prescribed time-limit and the obligation to pay default interest, payable regardless of the reason for the delay in making the entry in the Commission’s account (see, in particular, Case 68/88 Commission  v Greece  [1989] ECR 2965, paragraph 17; Case C-363/00 Commission  v Italy  [2003] ECR I-5767, paragraphs 43 and 44; and the judgment of 22 January 2009 in Case C-150/07 Commission  v Portugal , paragraph 62).
94. Under Article 11 of Regulation No 1552/89, any delay in making the entries in the account referred to in Article 9(1) of that regulation gives rise to the payment of interest by the Member State concerned at the interest rate applicable to the entire period of delay (see Case C-460/01 Commission  v Netherlands [2005] ECR I-2613, paragraph 91, and Case C-275/07 Commission  v Italy  [2009] ECR I-2005, paragraph 66).