Panasonic Italia SpA and Others v Agenzia delle Dogane di Milano.
Date: 2014-07-17
31. It must be observed that the wording of heading 8471 of the CN refers, inter alia, to automatic data-processing machines and their units, whereas the wording of heading 8528 of the CN, relates, inter alia, reception apparatus for television and video monitors. Subheading 8471 60 90 includes in particular data entry or production units other than printers and keyboards which may contain units of memory in the same housing, while subheading 8528 21 90 includes colour video monitors ( Kamino International Logistics C‑376/07, EU:C:2009:105, paragraph 33).
32. However, when the Court is requested to give a preliminary ruling on a matter of tariff classification, its task is to provide the national court with guidance on the criteria which will enable the latter to classify the products at issue correctly in the CN, rather than to effect that classification itself, a fortiori  since the Court does not necessarily have available to it all the information which is essential in that regard. In any event the national court is in a better position to do so ( Lohmann and Medi Bayreuth , C‑260/00 to C‑263/00 EU:C:2002:637, paragraph 26; Digitalnet and Others , C‑320/11, C‑330/11, C‑382/11 and C‑383/11, EU:C:2012:745, paragraph 61; X , C‑380/12, EU:C:2014:21, paragraph 34).
33. It will thus be for the referring court to classify the products at issue in the main proceedings in the light of the answers provided by the Court to the questions it has referred ( X  EU:C:2014:21, paragraph 35).
35. It is settled case-law that, in the interests of legal certainty and ease of verification, the decisive criterion for the classification of goods for customs purposes is in general to be sought in their objective characteristics and properties as defined in the wording of the relevant heading of the CN and in the section or chapter notes (see, inter alia, RUMA , C‑183/06, EU:C:2007:110, paragraph 27, and Medion and Canon Deutschland , C‑208/06 and C‑209/06, EU:C:2007:553, paragraph 34).
36. The decisive criterion for the customs classification of goods under the common customs tariff must be sought in the objective characteristics and properties of the products at the time of their presentation for customs clearance. The objective characteristics and properties of products must be capable of being assessed at the time of customs clearance ( Foods Import , C‑38/95, EU:C:1996:488, paragraph 17, and Medion and Canon Deutschland  EU:C:2007:553, paragraph 36).
39. According to settled case-law, the intended use of a product may also constitute an objective criterion for classification if it is inherent to the product, and that inherent character must be capable of being assessed on the basis of the product’s objective characteristics and properties (see RUMA  EU:C:2007:110, paragraph 36, and X  EU:C:2014:21, paragraph 39).
42. In that connection, the facts of the present case must be distinguished from those which gave rise to the judgment in Medion and Canon Deutschland (EU:C:2007:553), which concerned camcorders made capable, after a modification, of recording images and sounds from external video signals in addition to those from the integrated camera and microphone. It is clear from that judgment that those camcorders had not been expressly designed to fulfil that function, since they were capable of fulfilling it only after a relatively complex modification (see, to that effect, Medion and Canon Deutschland  EU:C:2007:553, paragraphs 40 and 42).
46. In that judgment, the Court set out the settled case-law, according to which both the notes which head the chapters of the CN and the Explanatory Notes to the WCO Nomenclature are important means of ensuring the uniform application of the common customs tariff and, as such, may be regarded as useful aids to its interpretation (see Siemens Nixdorf , C‑11/93, EU:C:1994:206, paragraph 12, and Kamino International Logistics  EU:C:2009:105, paragraph 32).
47. In the present case, Note 5 B(a) to (c) of Chapter 84 of the CN states that screens such as those at issue in the main proceedings fall within heading 8471 of the CN as units of an automatic data-processing machine if they satisfy simultaneously three conditions, namely they are of a kind solely or principally used in an automatic data-processing system; they are connectable to the central processing unit either directly or through one or more other units; and they are able to accept or deliver data in a form (codes or signals) which can be used by the system ( Kamino International Logistics  EU:C:2009:105, paragraph 41).
49. As regards the first condition set out above, the Court has held that the mere fact that screens are able to display images coming from sources other than an automatic data-processing machine does not preclude their classification in heading 8471 of the CN, having regard to Note 5(B)(a) to Chapter 84 of the CN, which refers to units used ‘solely or mainly’ in an automatic data-processing system ( Kamino International Logistics  EU:C:2009:105, paragraphs 43 to 45).
50. As regards the criteria to establish whether screens such as those at issue in the main proceedings are units of a kind used ‘mainly’ in an automatic data-processing system, the Court has already had the opportunity to state that it is appropriate to refer to the Explanatory Notes relating to heading 8471 of the HS, in particular to points 1 to 5 of Part One, Chapter I(D) thereof, relating to display units of a utomatic data-processing machines ( Kamino International Logistics  EU:C:2009:105, paragraph 59).
51.  It is apparent from those points that monitors used principally in an automatic data-processing system can be identified not only by the fact that they are fitted with standard sockets for connection to data-processing systems, but also by other technical characteristics, in particular by the fact that they are intended to be viewed close up, that they cannot display television signals, that they have low magnetic field emissions, that their display pitch starts at 0.41 mm for medium resolution and gets smaller as the resolution increases, that their bandwidth is 15 MHz or greater and that the dimension of the pixels on the screen is smaller than for video monitors in heading 8528 of the HS, whereas the convergence of the former is greater than that of the latter ( Kamino International Logistics  EU:C:2009:105, paragraph 60).
58. In any event, the Court has already had occasion to state that a regulation specifying the conditions for classification in a tariff heading or subheading of the CN cannot have retroactive effect (see, to that effect, Siemens , 30/71, EU:C:1971:111, paragraph 8; Gervais-Danone , 77/71, EU:C:1971:129, paragraph 8; and Biegi , 158/78, EU:C:1979:87, paragraph 11).