CHAPTER IGENERAL PROVISIONS

Article 1Subject matter and scope

1.

This Regulation lays down the conditions under which the competent authorities in the Member States for the application of the legislation on excise duties are to cooperate with each other, and with the Commission, in order to ensure compliance with that legislation. To that end, it lays down rules and procedures to enable the competent authorities of the Member States to cooperate and to exchange, by electronic means or otherwise, information that is necessary to ensure the correct application of legislation on excise duties.

2.

This Regulation shall not affect the application in the Member States of the rules on mutual assistance in criminal matters.

3.

It shall not affect the fulfilment of any wider obligation in relation to mutual assistance ensuing from other legal instruments, including bilateral or multilateral agreements.

Article 2Definitions

For the purposes of this Regulation:

  1. (1)

    ‘competent authority’ means the authority designated in accordance with Article 3(1);

  2. (2)

    ‘requesting authority’ means the central excise liaison office or any liaison department or competent official of a Member State who makes a request for assistance on behalf of the competent authority;

  3. (3)

    ‘requested authority’ means the central excise liaison office or any liaison department or competent official of a Member State who receives a request for assistance on behalf of the competent authority;

  4. (4)

    ‘excise office’ means any office at which formalities laid down by excise rules may be completed;

  5. (5)

    ‘event driven automatic exchange’ means the systematic communication, without prior request, of information with a predefined structure concerning an event of interest as and when that information becomes available, other than the exchange of information provided for in Article 21 of Directive 2008/118/EC;

  6. (6)

    ‘regular automatic exchange’ means the systematic communication, without prior request, of information with a predefined structure at pre-established regular intervals;

  7. (7)

    ‘spontaneous exchange’ means the communication of information without prior request to another Member State, not covered by points (5) or (6) or by Article 21 of Directive 2008/118/EC;

  8. (8)
    ‘computerised system’ means the computerised system for the movement and surveillance of excise goods established by Decision No 1152/2003/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 June 2003 on computerising the movement and surveillance of excisable products10;
  9. (9)

    ‘person’ means a natural person, a legal person, any association of persons which is not a legal person but which is recognised under the law of the Union or national law as having the capacity to perform legal acts and any other legal arrangement of whatever nature and form, regardless of whether it has legal personality;

  10. (10)

    ‘economic operator’ means a person who, in the course of his business, is involved in activities covered by legislation on excise duties, whether authorised to do so or not;

  11. (11)

    ‘by electronic means’ means using electronic equipment of any kind capable of processing, including transmission and compression, and storage of data, and includes the computerised system defined in point (8);

  12. (12)

    ‘excise number’ means the identification number assigned by Member States for excise purposes to records of the economic operators and premises referred to in points (a) and (b) of Article 19(1);

  13. (13)

    ‘a movement of excise goods within the Union’ means the movement between two or more Member States of excise goods under suspension of excise duty within the meaning of Chapter IV of Directive 2008/118/EC or of excise goods after release for consumption within the meaning of Chapter V, Section 2, of Directive 2008/118/EC;

  14. (14)

    ‘administrative enquiry’ means any control, check or other action taken by the authorities competent for the application of the legislation on excise duties in the performance of their duties with a view to ensuring the correct application of that legislation;

  15. (15)

    ‘CCN/CSI network’ means the common platform based on the common communication network (CCN) and common system interface (CSI), developed by the Union to ensure all transmissions by electronic means between the competent authorities in the area of customs and taxation;

  16. (16)

    ‘excise duties’ mean the duties referred to in Article 1(1) of Directive 2008/118/EC;

  17. (17)

    ‘mutual administrative assistance document’ means a document established within the computerised system and used for the exchange of information under Article 8, 15 or 16 and used for follow-up under Article 8 or 16;

  18. (18)

    ‘fall-back mutual administrative assistance document’ means a document in a paper form used for the exchange of information under Article 8 or 15, in the event that the computerised system is not available;

  19. (19)

    ‘simultaneous control’ means coordinated checks in regard to legislation on excise duties on the situation of an economic operator or related persons, organised by two or more participating Member States with common or complementary interests.

Article 3Competent authorities

1.

Each Member State shall designate the competent authority in whose name this Regulation is to be applied. It shall inform the Commission about that designation and about any subsequent change thereof without delay.

F1Croatia shall inform the Commission by 1 July 2013 of its competent authority.

2.

The Commission shall make available a list of the competent authorities and publish this information in the Official Journal of the European Union.

Article 4Central excise liaison offices and liaison departments

1.

The competent authority of each Member State shall designate a central excise liaison office to which principal responsibility shall be delegated for contacts with other Member States in the field of administrative cooperation with respect to legislation on excise duties. It shall inform the Commission and the competent authorities of the other Member States thereof.

The central excise liaison office may also be designated as responsible for contacts with the Commission for the purposes of this Regulation.

2.

The competent authority of each Member State may designate liaison departments, other than the central excise liaison office, with the competence assigned according to its national legislation or policy to exchange directly information under this Regulation.

The central excise liaison office shall ensure that the list of these departments is kept up to date and made available to the central excise liaison offices of the other Member States concerned.

Article 5Competent officials

1.

The competent authority of each Member State may designate, under the conditions laid down by the Member State, competent officials who may exchange information directly under this Regulation.

The competent authority may limit the scope of such designation.

The central excise liaison office shall be responsible for keeping the list of competent officials up to date and making it available to the central excise liaison offices of the other Member States concerned.

2.

The officials exchanging information under Articles 12 and 13 shall be deemed to be competent officials for the purpose of those Articles, in accordance with the conditions laid down by the competent authorities.

Article 6Obligations of the central excise liaison office, liaison departments and competent officials

1.

The central excise liaison office shall have principal responsibility for exchanges of information on movements of excise goods between Member States and in particular, it shall have principal responsibility for ensuring:

(a)

the exchange of information under Article 8;

(b)

the forwarding of notifications of administrative decisions and measures requested by Member States under Article 14;

(c)

mandatory exchanges of information under Article 15;

(d)

optional spontaneous exchanges of information under Article 16;

(e)

provision of feedback on the follow-up actions under Article 8(5) and Article 16(2);

(f)

the exchange of information stored in the electronic database provided for in Article 19;

(g)

the provision of statistical and other information under Article 34.

2.

Where liaison departments or competent officials send or receive requests for assistance, or responses to such requests for assistance, they shall inform the central excise liaison office of their Member State under the conditions laid down by the latter.

3.

Where a liaison department or a competent official receives a request for assistance requiring action outside its territorial or operational area, it shall immediately forward it to the central excise liaison office of its Member State and to the competent official of the liaison department in charge and inform the requesting authority thereof. In such a case, the periods laid down in Article 11 shall begin on the day following that on which the request for assistance was forwarded to the central excise liaison office and to the competent official of the liaison department in charge, but no later than one week following the reception of the request as referred to in the first sentence of this paragraph.

Article 7Information or documents obtained with the authorisation or at the request of the judicial authority

1.

The communication to the competent authority of another Member State of information or documents obtained by a competent authority with the authorisation or on request of a judicial authority shall be subject to the prior authorisation of the judicial authority if such authorisation is requested under national law.

2.

Where, in the case of a request for information, the judicial authority refuses such authorisation to the requested authority, the latter shall inform the requesting authority thereof in accordance with Article 25(5).