Opinion of Advocate General Gulmann delivered on 29 June 1994

1 Original language: Danish.

2 Decision 91/482/EEC, OJ 1991 L 263, p. 1.

3 OJ, English Special Edition 1968 (I), p. 165.

4 OJ 1990 L 290. p. 33.

5 In a similar case the Court refused to accept such an attempt to avoid the consequences of a time-limit (Case 148/87 Frydendahl Pedersen v Commission [1988] ECR 4993). In that case the Court disapproved the Commission's practice of asking the national authorities in applications for refund of import duties to -withdraw their requests and to re-submit them later, where the time-limit of four months within which the Commission had to take a decision under the contested regulations was not found long enough to investigate the case fully. The Court found that the real purpose of the practice complained of was to avoid the legal consequences provided for should no decision be taken within the prescribed period and that the Commission thereby committed a misuse of procedure.

6 The Netherlands Government had already stated in its letter of 9 July 1992 that it did not think that those measures would be evaded since they affected unrecorded video-cassettes whereas the intended production concerned prerecorded video-cassettes.

7 Article 133(3) of the EC Treaty.

8 Judgment in Case C-174/87 Ricoh v Council [1992] ECR I - 1335. paragraph 68.