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Legal Europe
SLIGO SEMINAR on E.E.C. LAW—OCTOBER 1974
THE E.E.C. AND THE ORDINARY SOLICITOR—SOME RELEVANT CASES
By JOHN F. BUCKLEY, Solicitor
Part II
In two other cases Italy has been similarly found
wanting by the Court. In the
National
Vineyards
Register
Case No. 33/1969 (1970) C.M.L.R. 466, the
Court made a declaration that Italy had failed to com-
ply wi'h its óbligations to establish a Register of Vine-
yards as required by a regulation requiring such a Reg-
ister to be established within a particular time limit,
and in the
Forestry
Reproductive
Material
Case
79/1972 (1973) C.M.L.R. 773, the Court held that a
Member State which failed to implement a direc-
tive within the time limit set down in the direc-
tive was in breach of its obligations
and that delay
in Parliamentary legislative process resulting from a pol-
itical crisis and dissolution of Parliament was not a good
excuse for the failure. The political crisis had occurred
three years after the expiry of the relevant time limit.
In dealing with the application of the regulation
governing export subsidies a German Court and the
European Court have each had to consider questions
involving the composition of sausages. In a case de-
lightfully entitled
"Re Rotten
Sausages"
(1972)
C.M.L.R. 488, the Hamburg Fiscal Court decided that
an export subsidy under the appropriate regulation
could only be granted for food stuffs if they were fit for
human consumption. In the case in question the ap-
propriate Department of the Hamburg Customs had
doubts about the quality of certain sausages being ex-
ported and referred them to the Veterinary Depart-
ment who decided tha.t the product could not be de-
scribed as raw sausage. The Hamburg Court decided
not only that this disqualified the product from a sub-
sidy but also that the applicant for the subsidy would
have to be responsible for the fees of the Veterinary
Examiner.
More recently the European Court has had to con-
sider a more technical question in the
Muras Case
No.
12/1973, (not yet reported). It decided that a subsidy
would not be payable for a sausage which was not
of such quality as would permit it to be sold on the
home customs territory.
A further example of the strict construction applied
to regulations is to be found in the
Brunner Case
No-
9/1972 (1972) C.M.L.R. 931, where the European
Court decided that the term "coming from" in an
E.E.C. Regulation which referred to imports into the
Community was to be construed with the meaning
that goods "coming from" Poland were goods which up
to the time of their delivery into the Community were
within the power of disposal and under the immediate
control of the Vendor.
In the case, the Polish State Bureau for External Trade,
had sold slaughtered duck to an Austrian firm which
had refuseed to take them because of a late delivery
and • subsequently they had apparently come into the
hands of a Swiss firm who had sold them to Mr. Brun-
ner in Munich and they had arrived with a customs
declaration indicating that they had come from Poland.
In a further case,
Rheinmuhlen,
No. 6/1971, the
Court decided that a Member State could require an
applicant for an export subsidy to satisfy the member
state that the goods concerned had at least been put
into free circulation in a non member country and
could also require proof that the goods were used,
consumed, treated or processed in a non member coun-
try. The particular case was a particularly flagrant one
because Rheinmuhlen had declared that barley and
wheat had been exported by it to Portugal, Switzer-
land and Yugoslavia, whereas in fact the wheat had
been put into circulation and consumed in Luxembourg.
Rheinmuhlen's case was based on the absence of any
claim for a levy applicable to intra-Community Im-
ports and that the absence of such claim raised a
presumption that the goods had been exported to a
non-member state.
The Hamburg Fiscal Court gave another strict in-
terpretation of the regulations when it held in a Case
called
"Export Subsidies on Pork"
(1971) C.M.L.R. 95,
!hat the date governing a qualification for an export
subsidy was the date on which the customs officer ac-
cepted its declaration of intent to export, even where the
customs office had been encouraging exporters to sub-
mit certificates each month for all dispatches during
that month. In an appeal from the Hamburg Fiscal
Court the Federal Fiscal Court of Germany had held
in
0
case called
"Revocation of Export Refunds"
(1971)
C.M.L.R. 51, that the mere movement of goods into a
free port was not sufficient to qualify it for 'he export
subsidy, even where there was verifiable evidence that
the goods were intended to be transported to the spec-
ified non-member state.
The European Court has even held that the making
of a distinction between the methods of calculation of
imports levies for imports from Non-member States be-
ing carried out in a different manner than fhe calcul-
ations of levies for inter Community trade was some-
thing which the Council was entitled to do. It has also
held that the doctrine of Force Majeure could not be ap-
plied to imports in inter Community trade because the
levies were not fixed in advance, but could be applied to
imports from Non-member States where the import
duties were fixed in advance. This was in the
Oehlmann
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