The European Commission has published the latest version of the Combined Nomenclature (CN) as Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2016/1821 of 6 October 2016 amending Annex I to Council Regulation (EEC) No 2658/87 on the tariff and statistical nomenclature and on the Common Customs Tariff in the Official Journal of 28 October 2016. It will be applicable from 1 January 2017.
The Combined Nomenclature forms the basis for the declaration of goods (a) at importation or exportation or (b) when subject to intra-Union trade statistics. This determines which rate of customs duty applies and how the goods are treated for statistical purposes.
The 2017 CN reflects the international commitments entered into by the Union, including the latest changes in the Harmonised System Nomenclature, the changes made as a result of Council Decision 2010/314/EU, and the changes made as a result of the Agreement in the form of the Declaration on the Expansion of Trade in Information Technology Products (ITA) approved, on behalf of the Union, by Council Decision (EU) 2016/971.
The amendments to the CN also take account of, for instance, changes in requirements relating to statistics and to commercial policy, technological and commercial developments, and the need to align or clarify texts or the changes to the references following the entry into force of the Union Customs Code.
Annex 1 to Section I (Agricultural Annexes) of Part Three (Tariff Annexes) of the CN contains Table I for the calculation of the agricultural components (AE), additional duties for sugar (AD S/Z) and additional duties for flour (AD F/M). Considering that the determination of the content of sucrose/invert sugar/isoglucose for products containing fructose could be interpreted differently in practice, a text clarifying the calculation has been set out in footnote 3 to Table 1.
The measures provided for in the Regulation are in accordance with the opinion of the Customs Code Committee.
