Case C-195/18 B.S. v Prokatura et al held mid-March, is great for the week-end. Serious stuff (excise duties and customs classification), but with a fun twist: does beer under excise duties and customs regulation require the beverage to be made with malt as an ingredient, or does it also include mixtures of beer with non-alcoholic beverages, as long as it has fermented? Put differently, may an alcoholic product obtained by fermentation of a wort produced from, inter alia, glucose syrup (yikes! yikes! and yikes again) and a small proportion of malt may be classified as ‘beer made from malt’?
The CJEU touches upon important issues: linguistic interpretation, WCO rules, etc. and finally decides that such a product can come under the ‘beer’ heading only on condition that its objective characteristics and properties correspond to those of beer (adding glucose syrup is not prohibited, other than of course under the only proper standard in this regard which is the Rheinheitsgebot (as amended)).
In this regard, the court holds, account must be taken more particularly of the organoleptic (meaning ‘involving the use of the sense organs’) characteristics of the product in question, which is an exercise the referring court must undertake. No tasting sessions at Kirchberg therefore.
Have a good week-end.
Geert.
gavc law - geert van calster 