Following the substantial amendments to Council Regulation (EC) No 625/2009 of 7 July 2009 on common rules for imports from certain third countries and the need for further amendments, Regulation (EC) No 625/2009 has been recast, leading to the publication of Regulation (EU) 2015/755.
Six chapters, organise the main principles and procedures ruling the import of products originating from third countries, excluding textile products.
1. General principles (Chapter I)
Establishes the scope of the Regulation by listing countries (Annex I: Azerbaijan Belarus Kazakhstan North Korea Turkmenistan Uzbekistan).
It applies to all imports of products excepted textiles that are covered by Regulation (EC) No 517/94.
Imports into the Union shall take place freely and accordingly shall not be subject to any quantitative restrictions, without prejudice to the safeguard measures.
2. Union information and consultation procedure (Chapter II) calls on Member States to inform the Commission if they consider that trends in imports appear to call for surveillance or safeguard measures.
3. Union investigation procedure (Chapter III article 3 to 6) defines in particular:
- Conditions for the Commission to initiate an investigation procedure;
- Commission report to be submitted to the Committee on Safeguards (established by art. 22);
- Confidentiality of the information collected for the procedure;
- Elements to take into consideration when examining the trend in imports (volume of imports, price, impact on EU producers,
etc.).
4. Surveillance (Chapter IV) establishes:
- Category of surveillance introduced by the Commission (retrospective or prior surveillance);
- Time of validity of the surveillance measures ;
- Condition for issuing a surveillance document (on the basis of the form model in Annex II), content of the document and
validity throughout the Union;
- Possibility for the Commission to limit the period of validity of the surveillance document or to subject the issuing to certain
conditions ;
- Geographical extension of surveillance (the all EU customs territory or only some regions).
5. Safeguard measures (Chapter V) lays down procedures for the Commission to introduce safeguard measures to alter the import of a product causing or threatening to cause serious prejudice to Union producers of like or directly competing products.
The Regulation also gives the Commission the power to amend or revoke applied surveillance or safeguard measures.
6. Final provisions (Chapter VI) includes provisions on:
- Non preclusion of the fulfilment of obligations arising from special rules contained in agreements with third countries;
- Non preclusion for Member States to adopt further actions (such as prohibitions, quantitative restrictions or surveillance
measures on grounds of public morality, public security, etc., special formalities concerning foreign exchange or following
international agreements);
- Need for the Commission to include information on the implementation of this Regulation in its annual report on the
application and implementation of trade defence measures presented to the European Parliament and to the Council;
- Exclusion of the operation of the instruments establishing the common organisation of agricultural markets;
- Empowerment of the Commission to adopt delegated acts (according to the procedure established by art. 21)
concerning amendments of Annex I;
- Repeal of Regulation (EC) No 427/2003 and (EC) 625/2009.