EEA/EU imports and conformity documents

I know most of you are in the States but perhaps there is someone in Europe who can help with my question.

I am stuck in a problematic situation where I have 5 pallets of manual machine tools (mostly Schaublin) in Norway which I need to move to France. I thought I had everything set up (this is going from one company to another) but then on Thursday the office in France asked for European conformity documents for the machines. They are two Schaublin lathes, a milling machine and a Deckel grinder and as they are from the late 1960s of course there are no documents of this sort to be had.

The exporter won't let me call it machine parts, scrap metal or anything like that. We are talking about around 50k euro worth of equipment so that is probably just as well as it could complicate insurance etc.

I had an helpful suggestion from a Schaublin dealer/enthusiast in the UK that under the UK implementation of the EU laws used equipment is not required to have conformity documents when sold within the EEA (Norway, Iceland, Lichtenstein and most of the EU countries). Many dealers in Europe have problems with importing machines from Switzerland which is neither EU nor EEA but it should not be an issue for Norway. My problem is the export company is not helpful and I cannot find the EEA/EU directive on this, only the UK version. Does anyone know how to deal with this? By the version of the rules the export company understands used equipment from before about 2000 is not legal to move within the EEA which is nonsensical.

thanks
Luke

easiest suggestion is get another company to move your stuff, because your current ones make no sense

are the "companies" you mentioned registered businesses in Norway and France? because with the goods involved, the only difficulty might be related to VAT, which might be omitted or added to invoice value of goods (and then refunded after proof ex export has been received), I'm not sure about VAT laws in France, but here such transaction would be nothing more than couple numbers in the monthly tax report to tax collection agency, no certificates or other nonsense for lathes and such

maybe someone saw the numbers in the invoice(s) you presented and panicked, thought maybe some VAT scheme is in the works (which are popular around here), and started prying you for additional info

Perhaps give Bring a call That is a big Norwegian transport compagny with divisions all over Europe
And like I sugjested in a PM Ask your chamber of commerce
Make them clear the machines are for personal use Not for resale


Peter

I already tried the chamber of commerce (French Norwegian) and they were unhelpful. I have also written to the EU help line and Schaublin.
The machines are all owned by my vat registered Norwegian company and being sent to my vat registered French company so I can't really call them for personal use. All of the shipping companies I talked to refused to import them without a company on both ends, even the relocation company that is supposed to work with personal goods I am thinking that if I can't get around the document requirements for machines I will call them collectable antiques which is really in fact what they are. No one in the right mind would pay that much money for 50+ year old tools without some sort of untangled value.

did you issue an invoice from the Norwegian company and pay from the French one?

That was the plan, Norwegian invoice to the French company. I wanted to have the French company be a branch of the Norwegian but the stupid French banks wasted nearly a year and never created a bank account so I had to give up that plan and create seperate companies.

then it should be a very easy deal, call a transport company, say - here is an invoice (with realistic pricing) for the goods, here is the letter from the Norwegian company that says the payment has been received and that the goods are ready to be picked up, here are the dimensions and weight, when can you deliver them to me? nothing else needs to be said or explained, if they ask something silly, go to next company

If the French companies are so difficult, use another one that runs through France and can drop your stuff on their way through, I have couple here in Latvia I've used to bring stuff to me from Scandinavia, and other one that runs the Spain/Italy<>Latvia route, direct route would be best of course, less chance of someone dropping something, but if all falls apart for you, I can ask them if they are willing, but the timing for such things couldn't be worse right now...

There is zero requirement for a transport company to apply such rules.

DHL SCS or supply chain services will move them a to b, no problem.

Any company can move any machine tools a to b in and out of the eu, subject to itar rules regarding weapons and high accuracy 5 axis cnc milling machines, not applicable here.
Your transporter and customs broker were eejits.

Weather you can sell them, and or how, and or what safeguards should be in place, have nothing to do with the transport.
And any company can sell any machine tool to another company, regardless.

But using or putting into service a machine tool is totally another matter.
We employ 16 lawyers in my wifes biz, and I sold 60+ cnc machine tools in the eu, spain, for Haas USA.

I do remember reading several years ago that in Britain, and I assume the entire EU, old tools made before about 1900 were exempt from VAT. It may have been something about being made before around 1973 when VAT was invented.
Theory being that there was a tax charged back in the day so it is unfair to tax a VAT on top of that tax as well. No value has been added in the last 100 years except inflation and it is unfair for the government to profit from inflation.
This information came form some online wood working tool dealer in Britain selling expensive hand chisels and planes to "collectors".
Bil lD

Bill D said:

I do remember reading several years ago that in Britain, and I assume the entire EU

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I am finding the implementation of rules like this across the EU unfortunately far more complicated than that. While all EU countries have VAT, when and how and how much a country chooses to collect isn't quite so uniform. I find this confusing as I would think that at least for external trade (with non-EU countries) the rules should be same rules. I am being told by a French import company that as a business I still have to pay VAT on imports from the EEA while other countries (UK, Sweden etc) do not do this. It is this sort of complication that paying an export company is supposed to clear up and I will keep looking until I find one that will actually do this. Right now I can't ship the tools anyway as even if it gets to France the local company I am using to move the pallets the last small distance has been forced to close by the virus.
Luke

Yes If you import machines from Norway to France you have to pay VAT But at the same time you can deduct that VAT in full if you have a French VAT nr
There is also a possibillity to exempt from that but you have to go through some loops to get that arranged

Bill D
You are totaly wrong about that You still need to pay VAT on older machines

As a bussiness VAT is deductable in full It does not harm your profit
Also if you do bussiness between different countries of the EU normally you do a innercommunity supply with no VAT
For that you have to mention the legitimate VAT nr of the buyer on the invoice You as a seller are responsible for the correctness

VAT only affects the privat persons
For me as a bussiness I collect it and forward it to the tax authorities minus the amount of VAT that I did pay on all the invoices I got

Peter

I think the UK is a bunch of idiots for wanting to leave this smooth, well-oiled community

EmanuelGoldstein said:

I think the UK is a bunch of idiots for wanting to leave this smooth, well-oiled community

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this is quite a special case, probably due to the OP, it has little to do with actual laws

usually problems occur because of special people (which is the case everywhere), I had a really special person on the seller side once that checked my company VAT number in the centralized EU database (because I wanted VAT omitted invoice issued to me), when I contacted him, I supplied the name "HHHHHHHHH, ltd.", and the name of the company that he saw in the db was - "HHHHHHHH, SIA", can you guess what the SIA and ltd. are? right, abbreviated translation, SIA in Latvian means the same thing as ltd. in English, I receive an invoice with VAT, ask him WTH?! he sais - sorry, the name you supplied didn't match.

EmanuelGoldstein said:

I think the UK is a bunch of idiots for wanting to leave this smooth, well-oiled community

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Actually this situation is perfect example of why the EU is a good thing. (the EU is a mess but it is the best mess available) The problems are because the French don't understand how to trade with non-EU but EEA countries because it is very unusual. If I were moving machines between countries within the EU there would be no issues, not fuss, actually in some ways easier than in the USA as there is more latitude for different laws between states. Working within the EEA as I am is actually better than it will be for the UK once the new trade terms take effect (no matter what they will not be as good as EEA). They have no freaking idea of the mess involved and all they needed to do is go chat with any Norwegian small business (they speak great English by the way

I also have heard back from the EU and there certainly is no requirement for CE documents for machines of this age (machines made before january 1 1993 are not covered by the Machinery Directive and CE marks etc)

so now if the damn virus will run its course I should be able to move the machines.

jz79 said:

this is quite a special case, probably due to the OP, it has little to do with actual laws

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Mostly just kidding, but the opportunity was too good to pass up