Regulation 2015/478 - Common rules for imports (codification) - Main contents

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

L 83/16

Council Regulation (EC) No 260/2009 (3) has been substantially amended (4). In the interests of clarity and rationality, that Regulation should be codified.

The common commercial policy should be based on uniform principles.

The European Community concluded the Agreement establishing the World Trade Organization (‘WTO’). Annex 1A to that Agreement contains, inter alia, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994 (‘GATT 1994’) and an Agreement on Safeguards.

The Agreement on Safeguards meets the need to clarify and reinforce the disciplines of GATT 1994, and specifically those of Article XIX. That Agreement requires the elimination of safeguard measures which escape those rules, such as voluntary export restraints, orderly marketing arrangements and any other similar import or export arrangements.

The Agreement on Safeguards also covers coal and steel products. The common rules for imports, especially as regards safeguard measures, therefore also apply to those products without prejudice to any possible measures to apply an agreement specifically concerning coal and steel products.

The textile products covered by Council Regulation (EC) No 517/94 (5) are subject to special treatment at Union and international level. They should therefore be excluded from the scope of this Regulation.

The Commission should be informed by the Member States of any danger created by trends in imports which might call for Union surveillance or the application of safeguard measures.

In such instances the Commission should examine the terms and conditions under which imports occur, the trend in imports, the various aspects of the economic and trade situations and, where appropriate, the measures to be applied.

If prior Union surveillance is applied, release for free circulation of the products concerned should be made subject to presentation of a surveillance document meeting uniform criteria. That document should, on simple application by the importer, be issued by the authorities of the Member States within a certain period but without the importer thereby acquiring any right to import. The surveillance document should therefore be valid only during such period as the import rules remain unchanged.

The Member States and the Commission should exchange the information resulting from Union surveillance as fully as possible.

It falls to the Commission to adopt the safeguard measures required by the interests of the Union. Those interests should be considered as a whole and should in particular encompass the interests of Union producers, users and consumers.

Safeguard measures against a member of the WTO may be considered only if the product in question is imported into the Union in such greatly increased quantities and on such terms or conditions as to cause, or threaten to cause, serious injury to Union producers of like or directly competing products, unless international obligations permit derogation from...