1.Without prejudice to Article 6(2), Member States may require that excise goods carry tax markings or national identification marks used for fiscal purposes at the time when they are released for consumption in their territory, or, in the cases provided for in Article 33(1) and Article 44(1), when they enter their territory.
2.Any Member State which requires the use of tax markings or national identification marks as set out in paragraph 1 shall be required to make them available to authorised warehousekeepers of the other Member States. However, each Member State may require that these markings or marks be made available to a tax representative authorised by the competent authorities of that Member State.
3.Without prejudice to any provisions they may lay down in order to ensure that this Article is implemented properly and to prevent any evasion, avoidance or abuse, Member States shall ensure that tax markings or national identification marks as set out in paragraph 1 do not create obstacles to the free movement of excise goods.
Where such markings or marks are affixed to excise goods, any amount paid or guaranteed to obtain such markings or marks, apart from the fees for issuing them, shall be reimbursed, remitted or released by the Member State which issued them if excise duty has become chargeable and has been collected in another Member State.
The Member State which issued these markings or marks may nevertheless subject the reimbursement, remission or release of the amount paid or guaranteed to the presentation of evidence, to the satisfaction of its competent authorities, that they have been removed or destroyed.
4.Tax markings or national identification marks as set out in paragraph 1 shall be valid in the Member State which issued them. However, there may be mutual recognition of these markings or marks between Member States.