Case C‑144/15

Staatssecretaris van Financiën

v

Customs Support Holland BV

(Request for a preliminary ruling from the Hoge Raad der Nederlanden)

‛Reference for a preliminary ruling — Common Customs Tariff — Combined Nomenclature — Headings 2304, 2308 and 2309 — Classification of a soya protein concentrate’

Summary — Judgment of the Court (Ninth Chamber), 3 March 2016

Customs union — Common Customs Tariff — Tariff headings — Soya protein concentrate used as an ingredient in compound feeds for very young calves — Classification under Combined Nomenclature heading 2309

(Council Regulation No 2658/87, as amended by Regulation No 948/2009, Annex I, heading 2309)

The Combined Nomenclature set out in Annex I to Regulation No 2658/87 on the tariff and statistical nomenclature and on the Common Customs Tariff, as amended by Regulation No 948/2009, must be interpreted as meaning that a soya protein concentrate, used as an ingredient in compound feeds for very young calves, comes under heading 2309 of that nomenclature.

In that respect, as regards Combined Nomenclature heading 2309, the term ‘preparation’ under that heading means either the processing of a product, or a mixture with other products. For it to come under Combined Nomenclature heading 2309, the product at issue must still, firstly, be suitable only for animal feeding and, secondly, have been finally processed or result from a mixture of different substances. Furthermore, it follows from Note 1 to Chapter 23 of the Combined Nomenclature that heading 2309 thereof includes products of a kind used in animal feeding, not elsewhere specified or included, obtained by processing vegetable or animal materials to such an extent that they have lost the essential characteristics of the original material, other than vegetable waste, residues and by-products of such processing.

In order to come under Combined Nomenclature heading 2309, a soya protein concentrate must still result from a process whereby the vegetable material from which it is derived has lost its essential characteristics. In that regard, the process for transforming soya meal, which results in the product concerned, has a specific animal-related purpose since it is intended to create a protein concentrate which, unlike soya meal, may be ingested by very young calves. Thus, the characteristics and objective properties of such a product and, in particular, the elimination or deliberate reduction of certain of the components of the soya meal in order to make that product suitable for inclusion in the feed for a particular type of animal, support the view that that product satisfies the conditions required for classification under Combined Nomenclature heading 2309.

(see paras 36, 38, 40, 41, 49, operative part)