Each year, the European Commission adopts a regulation reproducing the complete version of the Combined Nomenclature, together with the rates of duty, as resulting from measures adopted by the EU. The said Regulation has been published today in the Official Journal of the European Union and it will apply from 1 January 2022.

In the context of the effort of limiting global climate change, it was considered necessary to create a relevant new supplementary unit ‘t. CO2’.

This new supplementary unit means that for a limited number of goods (for example air conditioning units, heat pumps, etc.) the amount of tonne of CO2 (carbon dioxide) equivalent will have to be declared to customs. This means the quantity of greenhouse gases expressed as the product of the weight of the greenhouse gases in metric tonnes and of their global warming potential.

Other interesting novelties:

• new subheadings to facilitate monitoring of specific goods (‘not deterpenated rose oil’ of Chapter 33, ‘fibre board and plywood’ of Chapter 44, certain ‘steel tubes’ of Chapter 73, ‘aluminium composite panels’ of Chapter 76 of the CN);
• update of the CN in order to fulfill international commitments related to the changes in the Harmonised System (‘HS’) Nomenclature version 2022;
• modification of the classification of some substances in the list of non-proprietary names of pharmaceutical substances and in the list of pharmaceutical intermediates;
• expression of the gradual reduction of duty rates for products covered by the agreement in the form of the Declaration on the Expansion of Trade in Information Technology Products.