Opinion of Mr Advocate General Mancini

Mr President,

Members of the Court,

1. In diis case the Court is called upon for the fourth time to give a ruling on the compatibility with Community law of national charges levied for the health control of imports from nonmember countries. That question has already been the subject of the judgments of 28 June 1978 in Case 70/77 (Simmentbal v Amministrazione delle Finanze dello Stato, [1978] ECR 1453), of 22 January 1980 in Case 30/79 (Land of Berlin v Wigei, [1980] ECR 151) and of 22 March 1983 in Case 88/82 (Amministrazione delle Finanze dello Stato v Leonelli, [1983] ECR 1061).

2. The first question reads as follows:

3. IFG challenges the applicability of that provision on various grounds. First, the exception which it lays clown has lapsed, and on the basis of the principle of direct effect, the rule laid down in Directive 72/462 should be applied in its place, after the expiry on 1 January 1977 of the period for compliance prescribed by the directive for the Member States.

4. I now come to the second question. The Verwaltungsgericht asks whether, if the first question is answered in the affirmative, the legality of the charge depends on whether comparable charges are levied in all the other Member States in trade with nonmember countries. The question is essentially aimed at obtaining from the Court an explanation of a statement contained in the Simmen thai judgment. There the Court stated that derogations from the prohibition of charges having equivalent effect in trade with nonmember countries were lawful provided that the pecuniary charges levied in addition to customs duties introduced by the Community on that trade were uniform in all the Member States (paragraph 27).

5. On the basis of all the considerations which I have mentioned, I propose that the Court should answer the questions put by the Bayerisches Verwaltungsgericht by order of 27 October 1982 as follows:

1 Translated from the Italian.