Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2018/1602 of 11 October 2018 amending Annex I to Council Regulation (EEC) No 2658/87 on the tariff and statistical nomenclature and on the Common Customs Tariff

THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION,

Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,

Having regard to Council Regulation (EEC) No 2658/87 of 23 July 1987 on the tariff and statistical nomenclature and on the Common Customs Tariff (1), and in particular Article 9(1) and Article 12(1) thereof,

Whereas:

(1) Regulation (EEC) No 2658/87 established a goods nomenclature (hereinafter referred to as the ‘Combined Nomenclature’ or the ‘CN’) to meet, at one and the same time, the requirements of the Common Customs Tariff, the external trade statistics of the Union, and other Union policies concerning the importation or exportation of goods.

(2) In the interests of legislative simplification, it is appropriate to modernise the CN and to adapt its structure.

(3) It is necessary to amend the CN in order to implement the gradual reduction of duty rates for fresh bananas, as required by Council Decision 2011/194/EU (2), and of products covered by the agreement in the form of the Declaration on the Expansion of Trade in Information Technology Products (ITA2), as required by Council Decision (EU) 2016/971 (3).

(4) It is also necessary to amend the CN in order to take account of changes in requirements relating to statistics, to commercial policy and technological and commercial developments, by deleting obsolete codes, by introducing new subheadings to facilitate monitoring of specific goods; it is also necessary to adapt the list of international non-proprietary names (Annex 3 to Section II of Part Three (Tariff Annexes) of the CN) and the list of pharmaceutical intermediates, i.e. compounds of a kind used for the manufacture of finished pharmaceutical products (Annex 6 to Section II of Part Three (Tariff Annexes) of the CN), which are free of duty.

(5) In order to better monitor the growing market of ‘beverage can body stock’, ‘beverage can end stock and tab stock’, it is necessary to create new CN codes under subheading 7606 12 and to define these products under a new Additional note 2 to Chapter 76.

(6) In the interest of clarity, it is also appropriate to make certain minor changes in order to align the different language versions of the text.

(7) With effect from 1 January 2019, Annex I to Regulation (EEC) No 2658/87 should be replaced by a complete and up-to-date version of the CN, together with the autonomous and conventional rates of duty resulting from measures adopted by the Council or by the Commission.

(8) The measures provided for in this Regulation are in accordance with the opinion of the Customs Code Committee,

HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION:

Article 1

Annex I to Regulation (EEC) No 2658/87 is replaced by the text set out in the Annex to this Regulation.

Article 2

This Regulation shall enter into force on the twentieth day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.

It shall apply from 1 January 2019.

This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.

Done at Brussels, 11 October 2018.

For the Commission The President, Jean-Claude JUNCKER

(1) OJ L 256, 7.9.1987, p. 1.

(2) Council Decision 2011/194/EU of 7 March 2011 on the conclusion of a Geneva Agreement on Trade in Bananas between the European Union and Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru and Venezuela and of an Agreement on Trade in Bananas between the European Union and the United States of America (OJ L 88, 4.4.2011, p. 66).

(3) Council Decision (EU) 2016/971 of 17 June 2016 on the conclusion, on behalf of the European Union, of an agreement in the form of the Declaration on the Expansion of Trade in Information Technology Products (ITA) (OJ L 161, 18.6.2016, p. 2).