News

EU Commission issues the "Fifth report on potentially trade restrictive measures"

Friday, 04 December 2009 10:15

The EU Commission has published the "Fifth report on potentially trade restrictive measures in the context of the global economic crisis", identifying and analysing more than 220 protectionist commercial measures asopted by the commercial partner of the European Union during the period from October 2008 to October 2009. Such measures range from tariff commercial barriers (e.g. duty or other tariff increases), no tariff barriers (e.g. import bans, import licences, quotas and technical standards of security), to more sophisticated and "Behind-the-border" measures, such as"buy local" politics (used maiinly by Countries like Unites States and China, and more recently, by Indonesia and Russia).

New common rules for exports

Monday, 09 November 2009 10:42

After about 9 months since the adoption of the new common rules for imports (read our article), with the Council Regulation (EC) N° 1061/2009 of 19 October 2009, the Council issues a new discipline (codified version) of the common rules for export, that replaces the Council Regulation (EEC) n. 2603/69 of 20 December 1969. Such Regulation has been substantially amended several times. For that reason, in the interests of clarity and rationality, the Council has deemed opportune to introduce a new, updated, regulation.

(continues ... in Italian)

The European Commission adopts the annual update of the CN

Tuesday, 03 November 2009 11:38

In the Official Journal of the European Union L287 of 31 October 2009 is published the Commission Regolation (EC) N° 948/2009 of 30 September 2009, amending Annex I to Council Regulation (EEC) No 2658/87 on the tariff and statistical nomenclature and on the Common Customs Tariff.

The EC Regulation N° 2658/87, adopted since 1° January 1988, establishes the Combined Nomenclature (CN), i.e. the tariff and statistical nomenclature of the Customs Union, based on the 6-digit code of the Harmonized System (HS) of classification of goods administered by the World Customs Organization (WCO), which is expanded to 8 digits.

The Combined Nomenclature is periodically amended by the European Commission, that adopts each year (usually within October) a specific Regulation updating the classification headings of goods contained in the Common Customs Tariff and the relevant duty rates (which are listed in the Annex I of the Regulation N° 2658/87).

The latest update of the CN has been released with the above Regulation,which is applicable starting from 1° January 2010.

Export of certain waste to non-OECD countries: new amendments to the Regulation n. 1418/2007

Monday, 19 October 2009 18:17

The EC Commission Regulation N° 967/2009 of 15 October 2009 amends the EC Regulation N° 1418/2007 concerning the export for recovery of certain waste to those countries to which the OECD Decision on the control of transboundary movements of wastes does not apply.

(continues ... in Italian)

Italian rules on compulsory origin marking "freezed"

Monday, 28 September 2009 12:16

After a long and hard debate characterized by conflictual positions among companies, trade and professional associations and the Italian government, the new law decree N° 135 of 25 September 2009, published in the Official Journal of 25 September 2009, has finally been adopted. The new decree has repealed the much contested paragraph 4 of the article 17, law 23 July 2009, N° 99, which introduced since 15 August 2009 an obligation for companies to indicate the exact place where goods are manufactured, on all products or goods not originating from Italy and bearing a “trademark of Italian company”.