Yea, that list is relevant even today. And look at it, most of those are international airports which are unsuitable or too expensive for GA.
So the other list is even more important, but you will end up finding that many of the useful airfields and secondary airports have PPR requirements which nullify the biggest advantage Ga has, namely flexibility.
I don’t think that is fair to put all the blame on the pilot, you do get load of contradictions between aip, ops, notams, forums…for sure you can’t cover all your bases on this topic, to name few things that can spoil your day: landing in non customs, landing 15min late after their hours, depart when they don’t show up, you/ops/they not sending or receiving that pnr notification
But it is always a good habit to call local customs guys by phone before preferably, after you landed and they were not there or even few days after if you feel something was wrong while you have done “your best” to comply (they maybe on your case and then suddenly no longer interested when you gave that phone call )
Free movement of people and goods (i.e. flexibility) is one of the big advantages to GA of the EU for the full member countries (Schengen + ECU European Customs Union). Unfortunately, the populist trend these days is leading more in the direction of countries leaving the EU rather than joining it, so GA prospects indicate degeneration on this front rather than improvement.
My reading of the Münich Financial Court decision. My comments between brackets [].
On Customs duty:
On VAT:
I note that the court decision [dated 09.04.2019] says that there is a request made on 21 June 2017 to the customs authority to “decide on basis of fairness” (I assume that means “use its discretion to not enforce a rule or law when that enforcement would lead to an unfair consequence”), but since the customs authority has not decided on this request, it is not subject to judicial review. @Mooney_Driver and/or @chflyer, do you have any news on that request for “Billigkeitsentscheidung”?
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Mentioning Schengen in connection with customs is ALWAYS wrong.
It is within the discretionary powers of the customs authority that they want a 24h PPR on non-EU non-Schengen arrivals to a non-customs airport that is also not a special aerodrome, but only a 4h PNR (or even no PNR at all) on non-EU Schengen arrivals. They can decide they want 16h PNR on arrivals from the canton of Zürich, but 2h PNR on arrivals from Nidwalden. So the disputed text in the AIP (copied into Jeppesen) is plausible.
lionel wrote:
I don’t fully understand what “other approved aerodrome” entails.
Anybody has any information on that “übrige verkehrsrechtlich zugelassene Flugplätze” status? My guess is that this is a list established by the customs authority in application of their general power under § 3 Abs. 4 i.V.m. § 2 Abs. 3 ZollV to exempt as they see fit arrivals from the obligation to use a customs airport (Zollflugplatz), as long as the arrangements are made so that they can exercise their supervision. My guess it that this list is a list of destination/departure aerodromes that they announce they are inclined to grant exemptions to non-cargo flights from/to, but only on request?
The German customs authority has issued a leaflet on their website to explain who can fly where in what conditions, but it is mum on the “übrige verkehrsrechtlich zugelassene Flugplätze”, it mentions only “Zollflugplätze” and “besondere Landeplatz” (which is “Teil A” in the list linked to in post number 33; what about “Teil B”?).
lionel wrote:
The point is that the AIP said that this was a customs field, and the airport itself was genuinely convinced it was a customs field. With PPR for non-Schengen states, which the pilot was convinced of having respected even though he was not coming from a non-Schengen state and thus didn’t need PPR, by advising the airport. In such cases of customs having to be pre-arranged, usually the airport advises customs.
Every airport can be facilitated to have customs. This means that the police or customs officers travel to the place and meet you. But they won’t do that unless asked and agreed they will do so. The ATC or the airport personnel have nothing to do with this. At a customs airport there are permanent police/customs personnel to handle customs. So, one airport is “customs possible (if agreed)” the other is “customs always”.
Schengen is completely irrelevant. It has nothing to do with customs.
Looks to me what he did was to land at a “customs possible if agreed” without ever contacting customs.
LeSving wrote:
Every airport can be facilitated to have customs. This means that the police or customs officers travel to the place and meet you. But they won’t do that unless asked and agreed they will do so. The ATC or the airport personnel have nothing to do with this.(…)
Looks to me what he did was to land at a “customs possible if agreed” without ever contacting customs.
Having the aerodrome itself arrange customs (and/or immigration, respectively) at a “customs (immigration, respectively) if agreed/prenotified” aerodrome is a common procedure. And in my (non-German) experience, works much better than trying to call customs (immigration, respectively) directly. See my comment number 16. I’m learning that in (at least some parts of) Germany, calling the customs directly may actually work!
Peter wrote:
Where is the reference document, if it isn’t the AIP?
The true reference is the law gazette of that state, and of the European Union. For Germany, the Bundesanzeiger, for France the Journal Officiel de la République Française, for Luxembourg the Mémorial, etc. For the EU legislation, the Official Journal of the European Union.
While the above is true, it is not useful for us, and not useful for “the citizen at large”. Nobody learns how to drive by reading the Road Traffic Act (and a myriad of other regulations) from the official source. We read from compilations, examples, teachings prepared by experts, such as a driver training school. We ask the state official in charge of the enforcement of that part of the law, or in more modern times, read their website. We may ask a law expert (lawyer / barrister). The AIP participates in this process: it is supposed to faithfully reproduce and compile actual laws and regulations, but it is not the reference. The list published on zoll.de is the same process: it is supposed to faithfully reproduce and compile the actual regulation, but it is not the reference.
In the same way that if the public prosecutor (or the minister of Justice or whoever) says “it is forbidden to people with green eyes to stand within less than 50m of the Queen” does not make it true (it would take a legislative act of Parliament, or a lawful regulation taken by a lesser part of the state as authorised/delegated by an act of Parliament), the AIP saying “aircraft whose last two letters of the registration are not ER are not allowed to do touch-and-goes at any aerodrome within 20nmi of Buckingham” does not make it true. And if the list on zoll.de says “Memmingen is a customs airport”, that does not make it true; only publication in the Bundesanzeiger does.
Like everything in our life, we proceed by faith on the AIP, like we proceed on faith of many small things that the process of society and the state is not too broken. We do not read every page of the government gazette every morning to check that the parliament didn’t pass a law yesterday that says that we should now stop on green and cross on red, or drive on the other side of the road. We take the calculated risk that it didn’t, since we didn’t hear about it, and if they had passed such a law, there would “probably” have been a big public information campaign on it.
Thank you for the very illuminating posts Lionel and for the time you have put into them.
I agree with all you say (to the extent that I know it) and especially re the primary references for the law. But I still don’t get how this prosecution was possible if the pilot followed the AIP.
AIUI the UK has a defence for due diligence (it certainly has in some areas of regulatory compliance I could discuss by PM) and an AIP briefing would cover this. The fact that the AIP is published by the very government which is trying to bust you would make the half-life of a prosecution lawyer even shorter
Würzburg is not, was not, and never was a Customs airport.
How can they say that when the AIP, published officially by Germany, apparently said it is?
This excluded other providers of domestic passenger transport from performing that transport, so it had an economic effect in the EU, so the aircraft entered the economic cycle of the Union.
What are they smoking?
It’s a clear travesty of justice. The AIP is the primary reference for pilots.
Interesting how little input there is from the huge numbers German pilots who read EuroGA. One would think this would be a matter of some concern.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Everything else is wrong. You can’t apply for customs with the police or for immigration with customs.
In principle, yes. But it is not that unusual to have the duties of one delegated to the other in “simple cases”.