Opinion of Mr advocate-general Trabucchi

Mr President,

Members of the Court,

1. The questions of interpretation referred for a preliminary ruling in the present case by the Tribunale of Genova seek to establish whether the imposition of a pecuniary charge on hides imported into Italy from another Member State and from an African State associated with the Community constitutes a charge having an effect equivalent to a customs duty, which, as such, is prohibited both by the EEC Treaty and by the Conventions of Association signed at Yaoundé on 20 July 1963 and 29 July 1969 between the Community and the African States and Madagascar.

2. Let us, therefore, consider the purposes of the inspection carried out both when animals are slaughtered for human consumption and when the raw hides of the said animals are imported, the methods employed and the way in which the relevant duties are calculated.

3. In order to ascertain whether the veterinary inspection duty collected on imported hides possesses the features which the case-law of the Court has defined as distinguishing charges having an equivalent effect, the first thing to be established is whether it is also levied on corresponding national products.

4. As the present case is also concerned with imports from Senegal, a State associated with the Community, the third question asks the Court to determine whether the concept of charges having an effect equivalent to customs duties referred to in Article 2 (1) of the Conventions of Association between the Community and the African States and Madagascar, signed at Yaoundé on 20 July 1963 and on 29 July 1969, has exactly the same mandatory effect as that of the corresponding concept in Article 13 of the EEC Treaty. The Court has already declared that, by virtue of Article 177, it has jurisdiction to rule on questions concerning the interpretation of international conventions which the Community has concluded under Article 228 of the Treaty. This is, by implication, the conclusion to be drawn from the Court's judgment of 7 February 1973(Schroeder, Case 40/72, [1973] ECR 125) and, expressly, from the judgment of 30 April 1974 (Case 181/73, Haegeman, [1974] ECR 459).

5. The fourth question is whether the said provisions of the two conventions constitute provisions which are directly applicable under Community law theeffect of which, already defined by the Court, is that they create rights in favour of individuals who have an interest in their correct application.

6. I can now go on to consider whether the abovementioned rule in Article 2 of the Yaoundé Convention is of such a nature as directly to confer rights on individuals. In view of the principles followed by the Court in the International Fruit cases, to which I have already referred, it is not enough simply to establish whether the rule in the convention is complete in itself, whether its operative effect is sufficiently clear and whether, therefore, before it can be applied by the courts, there is any need for the Community executive to have previously adopted legislative measures implementing it: in addition to establishing those features it is also necessary to consider whether the rule, although taken by itself, satisfying those requirements, is not placed in a legislative setting of such a nature as, in contrast to the Community legal system, to prevent it from being directly applicable by the national courts so that it is impossible for individual rights to arise thereunder. It must be pointed out at once that the prohibition which this rule imposes on the Community and, consequently, also on its members is very specific as regards its subject-matter and is unconditional. In contrast to what was observed in connexion with Article XI of GATT, which prohibits the introduction of import and export quotas for products originating in the territory of another of the contracting parties, the provision under consideration here makes the power to derogate from it subject to substantive rules and to well-defined procedural requirements. The only provision to this effect is contained in Article 13 (2) of the first Convention and in the corresponding provision in Article 16 (2) of the second Convention. Recourse to the clause is permitted only as an exceptional measure, in case of serious difficulties and on clearly defined conditions, expressed in terms comparable to those of the safeguard clause in Article 226 of the EEC Treaty. Moreover, even when such exceptional measures are adopted by Member States, they must be the subject of prior authorization by the Community, and this ensures that the legality of the application of the derogative provision is always subject to review by this Court.

7. The effect of Article 2 (1) of the Convention signed at Yaoundé on 20 July 1963, taken together with Article 13 (2) of the EEC Treaty, to which the former refers, is that the prohibition against the imposition by Member States of charges having an effect equivalent to customs duties is effective from 1 January 1970, as was decided by the Court in its judgment of 18 June 1975 in Case 94/74 IGAV v ENCC [1975] ECR 711.

8. In its final question, the Italian court asks whether the prohibitions considered above have applied without interruption since they came into effect.

I am, accordingly, of the opinion that the questions referred to the Court should be answered as follows:

1 Translated from the Italian.