Keywords
Summary

Keywords

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Own resources of the European Communities ° Customs duties ° Customs debt ° Directive 79/623 ° Article 2(d) ° Direct effect ° Applicability in the event of infringement of Regulation No 612/77

(Commission Regulation No 612/77; Council Directive 79/623, Article 2(d))

Summary

Article 2(d) of Directive 79/623, under which a customs debt on importation is incurred in the event of the non-fulfilment of one of the obligations arising, in respect of goods, from the use of the customs regime under which they are placed or non-compliance with a condition to which the grant of the regime is subject, unless it is proved that these failures have no significant effect on the correct operation of the customs regime in question, has direct effect and confers on individuals rights which they may assert against a Member State which has failed to transpose the directive into national law, and which the national courts must safeguard. Indeed, that provision is unconditional and sufficiently precise to be relied upon before national courts, since it clearly provides for the possibility for the person concerned to prove that the failures to fulfil obligations which he committed had no significant effect on the correct operation of the customs regime in question, which means that the competent national authorities are under an unconditional, unequivocal obligation to examine offers of proof put forward in that respect.

That provision is also applicable in the event that Regulation No 612/77 laying down rules for the application of the special import arrangements in respect of certain young male bovine animals for fattening, as amended by Regulation No 1384/77, is infringed. The provisions of that regulation, which were adopted by the Commission on the basis of a delegated legislative power in a specific field, cannot render inoperative the rules of general application of Directive 79/623, in particular those of the aforesaid Article 2(d).