Article et seq. The case submitted to the Commission shall contain all the information required for a full examination. On 18 September , while the proceedings were still in progress, the French customs authorities asked the French Government to send the Commission a letter seeking confirmation that the analysis which had led them to demand payment of the abovementioned customs debt was correct.
That letter, which was in fact sent on 11 December , failed to elicit a reply. The latter appealed against that judgment before the Cour d'appel de Poitiers. The same parties, with the exception of the Slovak Government, took part in the hearing of 28 September Before I consider the merits, it is necessary to make a number of points concerning admissibility, given that the French Government has challenged the admissibility of the question.
According to the French Government, an interpretation of Article is not required for the purposes of the main action.
Again, according to the French Government, that is borne out by the fact that the doubt about which the Commission was actually consulted β although not even in the manner prescribed by Article β specifically concerned the soundness of the analysis which led the French customs authorities to enter the second element of the purchase price of the audiovisual equipment in the accounts post-clearance, for the purposes of calculating the amount of the duty, and not the existence of an error within the meaning of Article 2 b of the Customs Code.
I cannot rule out that this was indeed the doubt entertained by the national customs authorities, as set out in the abovementioned letter of 16 July But that does not necessarily lead me to accept the objection of inadmissibility. The national court referred the matter to the Court of Justice specifically to eliminate any uncertainty concerning the conditions required for Article to take effect. If the matter is framed in those terms, I consider that Community case-law on admissibility means that the question for a preliminary ruling must stand.
