German customs revealed the grounds for the arrest of private cars of Russians

Any import of cars into Germany from RUSSIA, even entry by personal transport, will be regarded as grounds for his arrest, follows from the response of the German customs received by RBC. Russians reported cases of arrests

Entry into Germany by a private car from Russia is regarded by the German customs authorities as the basis for the arrest of the car, follows from the response of the German customs, available to RBC.

“The import of passenger cars from Russia to the EU is prohibited in accordance with Art. 3i of Regulation 833/2014 defining the embargo against Russia. In this context, the expression "importation" actually covers any movement of goods or cargo. The embargo does not provide for exceptions to the ban for the circumstances you specified,” follows from the response of a representative of the Central Information Office of the Main Directorate of Customs of Germany, received by RBC in response to a request for the possibility of entering Germany by car with Russian numbers.

“According to the current legal situation, the import of the car is prohibited,” said a customs official, promising to return to the request “if there are any changes in the legal situation.”

Article 3i states (in English) that the "acquisition, import or transfer, directly or indirectly, of goods that generate substantial income for Russia", listed in Annex XXI, is prohibited if they are of Russian origin or exported from Russia.

At the same time, in German, the official translation of the EU sanctions law uses the term Einfuhr, which can mean simple import (as opposed to customs import).

List XXI includes not only passenger cars (customs nomenclature code 8703), but also, for example, shoes, laptops, mobile phones.

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According to the rules of the EU, each country of the union has the right to independently interpret and implement pan-European sanctions .

There is no uniform definition of what should be considered "import", Yury Shumilov, a partner at the Brussels law firm Acquis, told RBC. “For example, EU legislation establishing a European accounting system defines imports as transactions in goods between residents and non-residents. At the same time, in their explanations regarding the application of Art. 3i of the Regulation , the European Commission indicates that any “goods moving to the EU” fall within the perimeter of the import ban, the expert explained.

“It is likely that the German authorities apply this broader interpretation, especially given that it is given precisely in the context of the application of the sanctions regime against Russia. The fact that in this case there is no “income for Russia” is not decisive (this phrase rather simply refers to the list in Appendix XXI),” Shumilov added.

Measures of the German customs can be challenged in the appropriate COURT in Germany, which, in turn, can address the issue of the application of European norms to the level of the EU Court of Justice. “At the same time, in relation to this situation, the status of the person who imported the car and the purposes declared upon importation may also be of great importance,” the lawyer believes.

Among those faced with arrests of a personal car is Russian Ivan Koval, who lives in Germany. He told RBC that the car was taken from him on June 1 near his house in Hamburg. According to him, the customs officer checked the documents and admitted that they were in order, but the car was arrested anyway, since “from October 2022, the entry of cars with Russian license plates into the EU is prohibited.” When asked how he was let through the EU border in Latvia and then not stopped in Lithuania and Poland, the customs officers replied that other countries monitor the implementation of sanctions on their own.

“I asked what I had broken. It turned out that this is EU regulation 833/2014. I started reading this document on the Internet - it was written that these were sanctions against Russia due to the destabilization of the situation in Ukraine. I asked: "I have something to do with it, I'm not destabilizing anything." I was told that this applies to everyone – the military, not the military, it doesn’t matter, ”Koval said, noting that he was not given any documents about the arrest, only allowing him to photograph the protocol.

The man noted that the English version of the EU regulation 833/2014 uses the words import and EXPORT , in German there are similar words (importieren, exportieren), but the more official version is einführen and ausführen. They mean not only "import" and "export", but also "import" and "export".

“It turns out that due to the peculiarities of the German language, the lawalso extended to the import and export of cars, and this is a huge difference, ”Koval emphasized. According to him, many lawyers refused to take on his case, and the specialist who agreed reported that there was no legal practice on this article. He filed a complaint with the customs office, where they transferred the appeal to the Hamburg prosecutor's office.

“If the prosecutor's office takes the side of the customs and imposes a fine, I am not ready to pay any fines, because I know that I am right. I did not plan to implement this machine. In this case, I will go to court . Violation of the German foreign trade law is subject to criminal penalties. But the lawyer said that this was unlikely - they violated it for the first time, they didn’t know, ”Koval summed up.

Fontanka previously wrote about cases of confiscation of private cars with Russian numbers. Among others, the car was confiscated from a resident of St. Petersburg, Sergei, who, together with his wife and two small children, had been traveling around Europe since the end of May. They entered the European Union through Norway on a French Schengen visa, passed through Finland, Germany, Austria, France, Spain, Italy; after which we drove across Germany towards Scandinavia on the ferry Stockholm - Helsinki. Not far from Hamburg, German customs officers demanded that they stop, unloaded the personal belongings of the Russians and took the car away on a tow truck, citing sanctions.

Sergei told the publication that he had contacted the Russian consulate. The diplomats promised to contact the German customs and offered to translate the papers that will be issued by the department, as well as to advise whether to sign them or not. The consulate could not provide any other assistance.