Opinion of Mr Advocate General Mancini

Mr President,

Members of the Court,

1. The Court is once again called upon to interpret Regulation No 1798/75 of the Council of 10 July 1975 on the importation free of Common Customs Tariff duties of educational, scientific and cultural materials (Official Journal 1975 L 184, p. 1). Essentially, what must be determined is the meaning of the expression scientific instruments and apparatus in Article 3 (1) of that regulation. The Court must in particular decide, first, what are the particular characteristics which define the scientific nature of an activity, and, secondly, whether only those instruments and apparatuses which are intended to be used solely for scientific activities are to be regarded as scientific.

2. The purpose of the first question is to obtain an interpretation of the expression scientific instruments and apparatus. The Finanzgericht wishes to know if the definition of that expression to be found in Article 1 of Regulation No 1027/79 of 8 May 1979 (Official Journal 1979 L 134, p. 1) can be regarded as an appropriate interpretation of Regulation No 1798/75 and can therefore also be applied to events, such as those in the main proceedings, which took place before the entry into force of that provision.

3. The second question asks the Court to interpret the term objective technical characteristics in Article 5 of Commission Regulation No 2784/79 of 12 December 1979 (Official Journal 1979 L 318, p. 32). Here too, the Finanzgericht wishes to know if the definition of that term contained in Article 5 of Regulation No 2784/79 is to be regarded as applying to the period before the entry into force of that regulation.

4. The third question concerns the interpretation of the term scientific activities in the first indent of Article 3 (3) of Regulation No 1798/75, as amended by Regulation No 1027/79. According to that provision, any instrument or apparatus which, by reason of its objective technical characteristics and the results which it makes possible to obtain, is mainly or exclusively suited to scientific activities is to be regarded as scientific. The Finanzgericht München asks this Court whether such activities, in addition to pure and applied scientific research, include activities for developing new products, techniques and processes or improving existing ones on the basis of scientific knowledge and whether it is relevant whether such activities are carried on within scientific establishments.

5. For all the foregoing reasons, I propose that the Court should reply as follows to the questions submitted by the Finanzgericht München by an order dated 26 September 1983, in the proceedings between the Gesamthochschule Duisburg and the Hauptzollamt München-Mitte :

1 Translated from the Italian.