Introductory text

THE COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES,

Having regard to the Treaty establishing, the European Economic Community, and in particular Article 115 thereof,

Whereas Article 30 et sequitur of the Treaty, concerning the elimination of quantitative restrictions and all measures having equivalent effect, apply without distinction to products originating in the Community and those that have been put into free circulation in any of the Member States irrespective of their origin;

Whereas under these arrangements the requirement, be it purely formal, in intra-Community trade of an import licence or any similar procedure is prohibited;

Whereas, in addition, Article 9 (2) of the Treaty precludes any administrative procedure designed to establish different rules for the movement of goods according to whether they originate in the Community or originated in third countries and have been put into free circulation in one of the Member States;

Whereas, however, the full application of these principles presupposes the effective establishment of a common commercial policy;

Whereas the establishment of a common commercial policy is not yet complete; whereas the measures applied by the Member States in respect of some products from third countries have not yet been replaced by uniform common rules;

Whereas the fact that the common commercial policy has not yet been fully established means that there will still be disparities among the Member States' commercial policies which are likely to cause deflections of trade, which Article 115 of the Treaty is designed to prevent;

Whereas to this end the Commission is empowered to authorize the Member States to take intra-Community surveillance measures or protective measures, notwithstanding the principle of free movement within the Community of goods originating in third countries and put into free circulation in one of the Member States; whereas, however, Article 115 provides that these measures can be authorized only where necessary and that the Commission shall give priority to those measures which cause least disturbance to the functioning of the common market; whereas the result is that at the present stage of establishment of the common market the measures under Article 115 of the Treaty should be authorized only where deflections of trade lead to economic difficulties or jeopardize the effectiveness of commercial policy measures taken by Member States pursuant to the Community's international obligations;

Whereas the Single European Act provides for the establishment, as from 1 January 1993, of an area without internal frontiers in which goods, services and capital will be able to move freely; whereas this implies, on the one hand, that the disparities still existing among commercial policies applied by the Member States shall be progressively eliminated or reduced and, on the other, that the Commission must be fully aware of these objectives when assessing the need to authorize measures pursuant to Article 115 of the Treaty;

Whereas, by its Decision 80/47/EEC of 20 December 1979 on surveillance and protective measures which Member States may be authorized to take in respect of imports of certain products originating in third countries and put into free circulation in another Member State^f1 the Commission established certain criteria and procedures to be followed in implementing Article 115 of the Treaty;

Whereas, in view of past experience and the action programme the Community has set itself to establish the single market, Decision 80/47/EEC should be amended and in particular its scope should be extended to all those cases where disparities exist in commercial policy measures taken by the Member States in compliance with the Treaty, including cases where disparities in tariff measures are still authorized, and some of the criteria and procedures it lays down should be made more specific; whereas in order to accommodate these amendments the aforesaid Decision should be recast as a single act;

Whereas, in cases where a surveillance measure is authorized, import documents must be issued automatically, free of charge, within a given period and for any quantity requested; whereas if surveillance measures are requested on the grounds that imports may lead in a Member State to economic difficulties, the reality of such danger should be assessed in the light of deflections of trade observed in the past and the level of the import opportunities granted by the Community to the third country in question;

Whereas, should a Member State request authorization to apply protective measures, the time limit for the issue of import documents must be extended if the volume covered by the applications for documents pending reaches a certain level;

Whereas the information and grounds supplied by the Member States in support of requests for authorization to introduce the measures in question must be such as to enable the Commission to assess fully the need for such authorization;

Whereas it should be provided that, if necessary, the Commission may hold an inquiry to check the validity of the information at its disposal;

Whereas the measures adopted pursuant to Article 115 of the Treaty, by virtue of the fact that they not only constitute an exception from the provisions of Articles 9 and 30 of the Treaty but also hamper the establishment of a common commercial policy as laid down in Article 113 of the Treaty, must be interpreted and applied strictly; whereas, to take account of this and also of the objectives laid down by the Single European Act, such measures should be applied only for a limited period and where the gravity of the situation so warrants;

Whereas in order to ensure that intra-Community trade is not hampered it should be provided that the Member States, as a general rule, must request from the importer, as part of the completion of formalities connected with the import of a product from another Member State, only certain information and data; whereas, as regards checks on origin, the Member States as a general rule must ask only for a simple statement of the origin of the product as the importer can be reasonably expected to know it,

HAS ADOPTED THIS DECISION: