1 By judgment of 18 January 1993, which was received at the Court on 13 April 1993, the Cour d' Appel (Court of Appeal), Paris, referred to the Court for a preliminary ruling under Article 177 of the EEC Treaty a question on the interpretation of certain subheadings in Chapter 42 of Annex I to Council Regulation (EEC) No 2658/87 on the tariff and statistical nomenclature and on the Common Customs Tariff (Official Journal 1987 L 256, p. 1), (hereinafter referred to as "the CCT").
2 Between 20 October 1988 and 6 March 1989, the French customs service carried out checks on transactions involving the importation of travel goods, in particular attaché-cases, bags and suitcases. Those imports, which were made between 22 January 1988 and 16 December 1988 by Superior France SA through the customs agent Danzas, were of goods originating in South Korea, Taiwan and Bulgaria. The goods were declared under subheadings 42.02.12.91, 42.02.12.99 and 42.02.92.91 of the CCT, which provided for the payment of customs duties at the rate of 5.1%.
3 The customs service concluded that the products concerned were items of luggage in cellular plastic (PVC) reinforced inside with fabric (viscose polyester, cotton polyester) or knitted fabric (cotton) and that the textile should, for tariff classification purposes, be regarded as mere reinforcement. The goods therefore fell within the tariff headings relating to goods with outer surface of plastic sheeting or of textile materials, in particular subheadings 42.02.22.10, 42.02.12.19 and 42.02.12.11, and were subject to customs duty of 12%.
4 The case was brought on appeal to the Cour d' Appel, Paris, which gave a judgment on 18 January 1993 in which it asked the Court to rule on the question "whether, under notes 2 to 5 of Chapter 59 and note 3c to Chapter 56, travel goods in cellular plastic (PVC) internally reinforced with fabric (viscose polyester, cotton polyester or cotton), which were imported between 22 January and 16 December 1988, fall within tariff headings 42.02.22.10, 42.02.92.91 or 42.01.12.11, and what tariff was applicable at the relevant time".
5 At the outset, it should be noted that, according to the information in the documents before the Court, a typing error has crept into the last heading mentioned in the question. That heading must be read as 42.02.12.11.
6 In its question, the national court seeks in essence to ascertain whether, for the purposes of the subheadings in Chapter 42 of the CCT, travel goods in cellular plastic (PVC), internally reinforced with fabric, are to be regarded as goods with outer surface of plastics or, on the contrary, of textile material.
7 It must first be borne in mind that the classification of goods in the combined nomenclature is to be carried out in accordance with the principles contained in the general rules for the interpretation of the combined nomenclature, set out in Section I of Annex I to the CCT.
8 According to General Rule 2(b), "any reference in a heading to a material (...) shall be taken to include a reference to mixtures or combinations of that material with other materials ... The classification of goods consisting of more than one material or substance shall be according to the principles of rule 3."
9 General rule 3(b) provides that "mixtures, composite goods consisting of different materials ... shall be classified as if they consisted of the material or component which gives them their essential character in so far as this criterion is applicable".
10 In accordance with those criteria, it is necessary to determine whether it is the plastic or the textile material which gives the travel goods their essential character (see the judgment in Case 253/87 Sportex [1988] ECR 3351, at paragraph 8).
11 It is apparent from the Explanatory Notes of the Customs Cooperation Council on the harmonized system (hereinafter referred to as "the Explanatory Notes") - in particular those concerning Chapters 39 and 40 of the CCT, as well as Note 2(a)(5) to Chapter 59 and Note 3(c) to Chapter 56 of the CCT - which constitute methods of interpreting the headings of the CCT, that if goods are made of plastic combined with a textile material which is present merely for reinforcement purposes, the presence of the fabric has no bearing on the tariff classification.
12 It must therefore be determined, in the context of the CCT, whether or not the textile component merely reinforces the plastic material.
13 "Reinforcement" is defined in the Explanatory Notes on Chapter 40 of the CCT, concerning similar combinations of rubber and fabric. According to those notes, textile products which are untreated, unbleached, bleached or uniformly dyed, where applied to one surface only of plates, sheets and strips of cellular plastic, are to be regarded as merely providing reinforcement.
14 Those objective criteria also make it possible to determine whether, for the purposes of applying Chapter 43, the external surface of the travel goods is of plastic or textile material.
15 Consequently, the answer to the question submitted by the national court must be that, for the purposes of the application of the subheadings in Chapter 42 of the CCT, travel goods of cellular plastic (PVC), internally reinforced with fabric, are to be regarded as goods with outer surface of plastics and not of textile material, if the textile material merely acts as reinforcement. Textile products which are untreated, unbleached, bleached or uniformly dyed, where applied to one surface only of plates, sheets and strips of cellular plastic, merely act as reinforcement.