First preliminary ruling from EU’s lower court
The EU’s lower court has delivered its first preliminary ruling after being given jurisdiction last year to deal with questions referred to it by national courts.
The ruling related to a question from a Croatian court about the EU law on excise duty.
A change in the statute that governs the EU courts that came into effect on 1 September last year transferred jurisdiction to give preliminary rulings in six areas from the higher Court of Justice to the General Court.
Since that date 55 cases have been submitted to the General Court for a preliminary ruling.
Excise duty
The first preliminary-ruling case centred on the interpretation of certain provisions of the .
Croatia’s customs authority had demanded that a trader pay excise duty on the basis of a fictitious supply of excise goods appearing on falsified invoices.
The trader brought an action before the Croatian court, which asked the EU court whether the excise-duty charge was compatible with EU law.
Directive’s ‘exhaustive list’
The General Court, in , found that it was not, pointing out that excise duty became chargeable when the goods were released for consumption, adding that the directive laid down “an exhaustive list” of those release situations.
“In the present case, excise duty was imposed on account of an abuse of rights, involving the use of falsified invoices, even though the petroleum products were not supplied, which does not fall within those situations,” the judges stated.
“In addition, the General Court finds that even though the member states have a legitimate interest in taking appropriate steps to protect their financial interests, the fact remains that their regulatory power cannot be exercised so as to infringe the provisions of the directive,” they concluded.