Country of origin principle

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The country of origin or country of origin principle describes several principles that regulate the legal status of goods and service providers in a common market such as the European Union in cross-border traffic.
The rules of the country of origin apply.

taxation

The country of origin principle within the meaning of the German sales tax law means the taxation of a delivery or service with the tax rate of the country of origin or the country of origin. This means that the end consumer is also charged the sales tax of the country of origin.

This procedure is used for goods movements in private travel (excluding new vehicles), for intra-Community purchases below the purchase threshold (in Germany: 12,500 euros) and for dispatch deliveries below the delivery threshold of the recipient country (except for new vehicles and goods subject to excise duty: delivery thresholds of the individual EU countries between 27,889 and 100,000 euros (March 2003)).

In the European Union, the country of origin principle has not yet been formally implemented. The country of destination principle was largely retained. In fact, in the absence of the harmonization sought in the Maastricht Treaty, judicial law applies at a high level. If legal action is taken, this inevitably leads to the enforcement of the country of origin principle. In addition, the European Commission promotes the country of origin principle through various guidelines. As a result, there are 27 legal systems in every EU country, only one of which can be determined by the national parliament.

European single market

In connection with the internal market of the European Union , the country of origin principle states that a good or a service that has been properly manufactured and placed on the market in accordance with the legal provisions of a Member State, subject to certain exceptions, is generally placed on the market from that Member State within the entire Union may be brought. The country of origin principle has been used repeatedly by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), particularly since the Cassis de Dijon ruling in 1979, to open up the European market. For example, in 1987 he ruled that beer can be sold in Germany even if it does not comply with the German purity law , but the regulations of the country in which it was produced.

Since the country of origin principle carries the risk of domestic discrimination - goods manufactured abroad do not have to comply with certain legal provisions, but those manufactured domestically have to comply - the European governments decided in 1986 with the "Internal Market Project", which ran until 1992, to numerous product standards throughout To align with the European Union. As a result, the legal provisions that manufactured goods must comply with are mostly uniform across the EU.

Services

In the course of the planned Services Directive , this principle should originally also apply to services in the European Union. In the service sector, the offering company would then only be subject to the legal regulations of its home country. This would have meant that a service provider who is licensed in an EU country can operate in all countries. After numerous protests by non-governmental organizations critical of globalization such as attac , trade unions, etc., the country of origin principle was defused by the European Parliament in February 2006 in favor of the country of destination principle .