Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2021/1832 of 12 October 2021 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 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 thereof,

Whereas:

(1) Regulation (EEC) No 2658/87 established a goods nomenclature (‘Combined Nomenclature’ or ‘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 update the CN in order to fulfil international commitments related to the changes in the Harmonised System (‘HS’) Nomenclature, pursuant to the Recommendation of 28 June 2019 of the Customs Cooperation Council.

(4) The HS 2022 amendments in Chapter 24 addressing novel tobacco products need to be transposed in the CN with specific headings and subheadings, to allow their identification and classification in accordance with Regulation (EEC) No 2658/87 and the relevant case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (e.g. C-547/13, Oliver Medical, point (45).

(5) Regarding the classification of novel tobacco products with regard to the nature of the emissions they produce, it may need to be reviewed, at a later stage, in the HS2027 review cycle if there is new evidence relevant for classification resulting, inter alia, from the work carried out by the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

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

(7) It is necessary to amend the CN in order to take account of changes in requirements relating to statistics and to commercial policy and technological and commercial developments, by introducing new subheadings to facilitate monitoring of specific goods (‘not deterpenated rose oil’ of Chapter 33, ‘fibre board and plywood’ of Chapter 44, certain ‘steel tubes’ of Chapter 73, ‘aluminium composite panels’ of Chapter 76 of the CN).

(8) It is necessary to amend the classification of some substances in the list of non-proprietary names of pharmaceutical substances in Annex 3 of Part Three (Tariff Annexes) of Annex I to Regulation (EEC) No 2658/87 and in the list of pharmaceutical intermediates in Annex 6 of Part Three (Tariff Annexes) of Annex I to that Regulation.

(9) In the context of the effort of limiting global climate change, it is necessary to monitor the impact of the trade in fluorinated greenhouse gases on climate, and, therefore, to insert additional TARIC codes in Annex 10 of CN and to create a relevant new supplementary unit ‘t. CO2’.

(10) With effect from 1 January 2022, 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.

(11) 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 2022.

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

Done at Brussels, 12 October 2021.

For the Commission, On behalf of the President, Gerassimos THOMAS Director-General Directorate-General for Taxation and Customs Union

(1) OJ L 256, 7.9.1987, p. 1.

(2) 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).