21.12.2013   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 377/7

1.

Is it contrary to Articles 10(2) and 12 of Council Regulation (EEC) No 2658/87 of 23 July 1987 (1) and to the principle of legal certainty to interpret the amendments made to the Explanatory Notes accompanying Chapter 84 of the Schedule of Customs duties set out in Part II of Annex I thereto by Commission Regulation (EC) No 1549/06 of 17 October 2006 (2) (which excludes loudspeakers from heading 8471 where they are presented separately from automatic data-processing machines) in order to find that the goods imported by ADL American Dataline s.r.l. (3) … perform a specific function (reproduction and amplification of sound) ‘other’ than data processing?

2.

Must the goods imported by ADL American Dataline s.r.l. …, namely, ‘loudspeakers’ marketed separately from automatic data-processing machines, be regarded as devices ‘performing a specific function other than data processing’ — assuming that the reproduction and amplification of sound … must be regarded as such — or is it not possible to regard them as system units performing a specific function other than data processing, since, having regard to their specific technical characteristics (connection only via USB cable; operating system MAC OS 9 required), they ‘have no function which they would be capable of performing without the assistance of such a machine [that is to say, without the assistance of an automatic data-processing machine’ (see Case C-339/98 Peacock AG [2000] ECR I-8947, paragraphs 14 and 15, and Case C-142/06 Olicom [2007] ECR I-6675, paragraphs 20, 29 and 30, which, although referring to other types of device — network cards and ‘combination’ cards — seem to indicate that a lack of any ‘other’ specific function stems from the fact that (i) the device cannot function without a personal computer and (ii) the device has the capacity to accept and to convert at output signals transmitted by the processor)?