Keywords
Summary

Keywords

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Common Customs Tariff ° Tariff headings ° Classification of goods ° Criteria ° Objective characteristics of the product ° Manufacturing processes ° Condition for their being taken into account ° Rule 2(a) ° Goods imported unassembled or disassembled ° Interpretation ° Reference to the Explanatory Notes of the Customs Cooperation Council Nomenclature ° Limits

Summary

Whilst the customs tariff does indeed in certain cases contain references to manufacturing processes of goods, the preference is, in the interests of legal certainty and ease of verification, to have recourse to criteria for classification based on the objective characteristics of products, as defined in the wording of the headings and the notes to the sections or chapters which can be ascertained on the occasion of customs clearance. Consequently, the manufacturing processes of a product are decisive only when the tariff heading expressly so provides.

Consequently, the second sentence of Rule 2(a) of the Rules for the Interpretation of the Nomenclature of the Common Customs Tariff in Part I, Section I, A of the Annex to Regulation No 950/68 on the Common Customs Tariff, as amended by Regulation No 1/72, which, without defining the assembly operation, provides that for tariff classification purposes, an article imported unassembled or disassembled must be regarded as a complete article, must be interpreted as meaning that an article is to be considered to be imported unassembled or disassembled where the component parts, that is the parts which may be identified as components intended to make up the finished product, are all presented for customs clearance at the same time and no account is to be taken in that regard of the assembly technique or the complexity of the assembly method.

It is not possible to rely as against that interpretation on an Explanatory Note to the Nomenclature of the Customs Cooperation Council because those notes do not have legally binding force and must be disregarded if their content is not in accordance with the actual provisions of the Customs Cooperation Council and the meaning of those provisions would be altered if that note were taken into account.