Council Regulation (EU) 2017/2467

of 21 December 2017

amending Regulation (EU) No 1387/2013 suspending the autonomous Common Customs Tariff duties on certain agricultural and industrial products

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:

(1)
The Union production of 67 products that are not listed in the Annex to Council Regulation (EU) No 1387/20131 is not sufficient to cover the needs of the Union industry. It is therefore in the interest of the Union to suspend the autonomous Common Customs Tariff (‘CCT’) duties on those products.
(2)

It is necessary to modify the conditions for the suspension of autonomous CCT duties for 49 products listed in the Annex to Regulation (EU) No 1387/2013 in order to take into account technical product developments and economic trends on the market. Certain product classifications have been amended in order to allow industry to fully benefit from the suspensions in force. Moreover, the Annex to Regulation (EU) No 1387/2013 should be updated in order to align or clarify texts in some cases. The modified conditions relate to changes in the product description, classification, duty rates or end-use requirements.

(3)

The end dates for the mandatory review provided for in the Annex to Regulation (EU) No 1387/2013 should be revised for 188 suspensions.

(4)

It is no longer in the interest of the Union to maintain the suspension of autonomous CCT duties for 92 products listed in the Annex to Regulation (EU) No 1387/2013. Suspensions for those products should therefore be deleted from that Annex.

(5)

In the interests of clarity, the entries for the suspensions that are modified or newly introduced by this Regulation should be marked with an asterisk, whereas the asterisk should be removed from the entries for the suspensions that are not modified by this Regulation.

(6)

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

(7)
In order to avoid any interruption of the application of the autonomous suspension scheme and to comply with the guidelines set out in the Communication from the Commission concerning autonomous tariff suspensions and quotas2, the changes provided for in this Regulation regarding the suspensions for the products concerned have to apply from 1 January 2018. This Regulation should therefore enter into force as a matter of urgency,

HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION: