[F1CHAPTER 3 U.K. Management of tariff measures
Section 1 U.K. Management of tariff quotas designed to be used following the chronological order of dates of customs declarations
Article 308a U.K.
1. Save as otherwise provided, where tariff quotas are opened by a Community provision, those tariff quotas shall be managed in accordance with the chronological order of dates of acceptance of declarations for release for free circulation.
2. Where a declaration for release for free circulation incorporating a valid request by the declarant to benefit from a tariff quota is accepted, the Member State concerned shall draw from the tariff quota, through the Commission, a quantity corresponding to its needs.
3. Member States shall not present any request for drawing until the conditions laid down in Article 256 (2) and (3) are satisfied
4. Subject to paragraph 8, allocations shall be granted by the Commission on the basis of the date of acceptance of the relevant declaration for release for free circulation, and to the extent that the balance of the relevant tariff quota so permits. Priority shall be established in accordance with the chronological order of these dates.
5. The Member States shall communicate to the Commission all valid requests for drawing without delay. Those communications shall include the date referred to in paragraph 4, and the exact amount applied for on the relevant customs declaration.
6. For the purposes of paragraphs 4 and 5, the Commission shall fix order numbers where none are provided by the Community provision opening the tariff quota.
7. If the quantities requested for drawing from a tariff quota are greater than the balance available, allocation shall be made on a pro rata basis with respect to the requested quantities.
8. For the purposes of this Article, acceptance of a declaration by the customs authorities on 1, 2 or 3 January shall be regarded as acceptance on 3 January. However, if one of those days falls on a Saturday or a Sunday, such acceptance shall be regarded as having taken place on 4 January.
9. Where a new tariff quota is opened, drawings shall not be granted by the Commission before the 11th working day following the date of publication of the provision which created that tariff quota.
10. Member States shall immediately return to the Commission the amount of drawings which they do not use. However, where an erroneous drawing representing a customs debt of ECU 10 or less is discovered after the first month following the end of the period of validity of the tariff quota concerned, Member States needs not make a return.
11. If the customs authorities invalidate a declaration for release for free circulation in respect of goods which are the subject of a request for benefit of a tariff quota, the complete request shall be cancelled in respect of those goods. The Member States concerned shall immediately return to the Commission any quantity drawn, in respect of those goods, from the tariff quota.
12. Details of drawings requested by individual Member States shall be treated by the Commission and other Member States as confidential.
Article 308b U.K.
1. The Commission shall make an allocation each working day, except:
days which are holidays for the Community institutions in Brussels, or
in exceptional circumstances, any other day, provided that the competent authorities of the Member States have been informed in advance.
2. Subject to Article 308a (8), any allocation shall take into account all unanswered requests which relate to declarations for release for free circulation accepted up to and including the second previous day, and which have been communicated to the Commission.
[F2Article 308c U.K.
1. A tariff quota shall be considered as critical as soon as 75 % of the initial volume has been used, or at the discretion of the competent authorities.
2. By way of derogation from paragraph 1, a tariff quota shall be considered from the date of its opening as critical in any of the following cases:
(a) it is opened for less than three months;
(b) tariff quotas having the same product coverage and origin and an equivalent quota period as the tariff quota in question (equivalent tariff quotas) have not been opened in the previous two years;
(c) an equivalent tariff quota opened in the previous two years had been exhausted on or before the last day of the third month of its quota period or had a higher initial volume than the tariff quota in question.
3. A tariff quota whose sole purpose is the application, under the rules of the WTO, of either a safeguard measure or a retaliatory measure shall be considered as critical as soon as 75 % of the initial volume has been used irrespective of whether or not equivalent tariff quotas were opened in the previous two years.]
Textual Amendments
Textual Amendments
Section 2 U.K. [F3Surveillance of goods]
Article 308d U.K.
[F31. Where Community surveillance is to be made, the Member States shall provide surveillance reports to the Commission at least once each month containing details of the quantities of products put into free circulation or exported. As regards imports, and at the Commission's request, Member States shall confine this data to imports with the benefit preferential tariff arrangements.
2. The surveillance reports of the Member States shall indicate the total quantities put into free circulation or exported, as the case may be since the first day of the period concerned.]
3. The Member States shall transmit their monthly surveillance reports to the Commission no later than the 15th day of the month following the end of the period being reported on.
4. The information communicated by individual Member States shall be treated as confidential.]
Textual Amendments