Introductory text

THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,

Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, and in particular Article 31 thereof,

Having regard to the proposal from the European Commission,

Whereas:

It is in the interest of the Union to suspend totally the autonomous Common Customs Tariff duties on 135 products which are currently not listed in Annex I to Council Regulation (EU) No 1387/2013^f1. Those products should, therefore, be inserted into that Annex.

It is no longer in the interest of the Union to maintain the suspension of autonomous Common Customs Tariff duties on 52 of the products that are currently listed in Annex I to Regulation (EU) No 1387/2013. Those products should, therefore, be deleted from that Annex.

It is necessary to modify the product descriptions of 29 suspensions included in Annex I to Regulation (EU) No 1387/2013 in order to take account of technical product developments, economic trends on the market or to carry out linguistic adaptations. Moreover, following upcoming changes in the Combined Nomenclature as of 1 January 2015, TARIC codes for 95 additional products should be amended. In addition, for one product, multiple classification is considered no longer necessary. The suspensions in respect of which modifications are necessary should be deleted from the list of suspensions in Annex I to Regulation (EU) No 1387/2013, and the modified suspensions should be reinserted into that list.

Tariff suspensions should be reviewed regularly with the possibility of deletion at the request of a party concerned. Where it is justified by the Union's interest, a tariff suspension is prolonged and a new review date is set.

For 184 products it is necessary, in the interest of the Union, to amend the date for their mandatory review in order to allow duty free imports beyond that date. Those products have been reviewed and have been given revised dates for their next mandatory review. Therefore, they should be deleted from the list of suspensions in Annex I to Regulation (EU) No 1387/2013, and the modified suspensions should be reinserted into that list.

It is necessary, in the interest of the Union, to shorten the period of mandatory review for four products. The suspensions relating to those products should therefore be deleted from the list of suspensions in Annex I to Regulation (EU) No 1387/2013, and the modified suspensions should be reinserted into that list. With a view to adequately ensuring the continuous applicability of the suspension (without any intermission), the suspension relating to products with TARIC codes ex 8501 32 00 50 and ex 8501 33 00 55 should apply from 1 January 2014.

In the interest of clarity, the modified entries should be marked with an asterisk.

In order to allow an appropriate statistical monitoring, Annex II to Regulation (EU) No 1387/2013 should be completed with supplementary units for some of the new products for which suspensions are granted. For reasons of consistency, the supplementary units assigned to the products deleted from Annex I to Regulation (EU) No 1387/2013 should also be deleted from Annex II to that Regulation.

Regulation (EU) No 1387/2013 should therefore be amended accordingly.

Since the amendments pursuant to this Regulation should take effect from 1 January 2015, this Regulation should apply from that date and enter into force on the day of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union,

HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION: