Agrover Srl v Agenzia Dogane Circoscrizione Doganale di Genova.
Date: 2007-10-18
17. According to the Court’s settled case-law, in interpreting a provision of Community law it is necessary to consider not only its wording but also the context in which it occurs and the objects of the rules of which it is part (Case 292/82 Merck  [1983] ECR 3781, paragraph 12, and Joined Cases C‑554/03 and C‑545/03 Mobistar and Belgacom Mobile  [2005] ECR I-7723, paragraph 39) and also the provisions of Community law as a whole (Case 283/81 Cilfit and Others [1982] ECR 3415, paragraph 20). Moreover, the primacy of international agreements concluded by the Community over secondary Community legislation requires that the latter, in so far as possible, be interpreted in conformity with those agreements (Case C‑311/04 Algemene Scheeps Agentuur Dordrecht [2006] ECR I-609, paragraph 25 and the case-law cited).
20. Those considerations show that, in adopting Article 216 of the Customs Code, the legislature intended that the objective of economic integration inherent in preferential agreements should prevail over that of promotion of exports by Community undertakings pursued by the inward processing customs procedure (see, to that effect, Case C‑437/93 Temic Telefunken  [1995] ECR I-1687, paragraph 18, and Case C‑103/96 Eridania Beghin-Say [1997] ECR I-1453, paragraph 26).
30. It must be noted that, under Article 220(2)(b) of the Customs Code, the competent authorities are not to make subsequent entry of the import duties in the accounts unless three cumulative conditions are fulfilled. First, it is necessary that the duties were not levied as a result of an error on the part of the competent authorities themselves, secondly, that the error made by them was such that it could not reasonably have been detected by a person liable for payment acting in good faith and, finally, that that person complied with all the provisions laid down by the legislation in force as regards the customs declaration (see, by analogy, Case 161/88 Binder [1989] ECR 2415, paragraphs 15 and 16; Joined Cases C‑153/94 and C‑204/94 Faroe Seafood and Others [1996] ECR I‑2465, paragraph 83; order in Case C‑299/98 P CPL Imperial 2 and Unifrigo  v Commission  [1999] ECR I‑8683, paragraph 22, and order in Case C‑30/00 William Hinton & Sons  [2001] ECR I‑7511, paragraphs 68, 69, 71 and 72). If those conditions are fulfilled, the person liable is entitled to the waiver of the subsequent recovery of the duty (Case C‑348/89 Mecanarte [1991] ECR I-3277, paragraph 12).
31. As regards the first of those conditions, it should be noted that Article 220(2)(b) of the Customs Code is intended to protect the legitimate expectation of the person liable for payment that all the information and criteria on which the decision to recover or not to recover customs duties is based are correct. The legitimate expectations of the person liable attract the protection provided for in that article only if it was the competent authorities ‘themselves’ which created the basis for those expectations. Thus, only errors attributable to acts of the competent authorities create entitlement to the waiver of subsequent recovery of customs duties (see, by analogy, Mecanarte , paragraphs 19 and 23).
32. As regards the second of the conditions referred to above, whether an error of the competent customs authorities was detectable must be assessed having regard to the nature of the error, the professional experience of the operators concerned and the care which they exercised. The nature of the error must be assessed in relation to the complexity or sufficient simplicity of the rules concerned and the period of time during which the authorities persisted in their error (Case C‑499/03 P Biegi Nahrungsmittel and Commonfood v Commission  [2005] ECR I‑1751, paragraphs 47 and 48 and the case-law cited).
33. As to the third condition, the person making the declaration must supply the competent customs authorities with all the necessary information as required by the Community rules, and by any national rules supplementing or transposing them, in relation to the customs treatment requested for the goods in question ( Faroe Seafood and Others , paragraph 108).