Нидерландски

OPINION OF MR ADVOCATE-GENERAL WARNER DELIVERED ON 11 OCTOBER 1973 My Lords, These cases come to the Court by way of references for preliminary rulings by the Arbeidsrechtbank of Antwerp. They raise questions of considerable importance in relation to the impact of the common customs tariff. A Belgian statute of April 1960, as amended in July 1962, prescribed that (with immaterial exceptions) there should be levied upon all imports of rough diamonds into Belgium a contribution, of 1/3 % of their value, to the Sociaal Fonds voor de Diamantarbeiders. This body, as its name suggests, is charged with the duty of providing certain social security benefits for workers in the Belgian diamond cutting industry. It is the plaintiff in the proceedings before the Arbeidsrechtbank. In those proceedings it seeks to recover from the defendants, who are importers of rough diamonds into Belgium, the contributions to which they are, under the statute, liable for the year 1968, together with penalties and interest. The defendants have pleaded, among other defences, that the levying of such contributions, and therefore also of the attendant penalties and interest, is contrary to Community law. This is not the first time that the question of the compatibility of that Belgian statute with Community law has arisen. It did so, Your Lordships will remember, in Cases 2 and 3/69 Sociaal Fonds voor de Diamantarbeiders v Brachfeld and Chougol (Rec. 1969, p. 211). In those cases this Court held in effect that contributions of the kind imposed by the ... Прочетете още