C-495/03.

On those grounds, the Court (First Chamber) hereby rules: 1. Article 234 EC must be interpreted as meaning that when, in proceedings relating to the tariff classification of specific goods before a national court or tribunal, a binding tariff information relating to similar goods issued to a person not party to the dispute by the customs authorities of another Member State is submitted, and that court or tribunal takes the view that the tariff classification made in that information is wrong, those two circumstances: – cannot result, in respect of a court or tribunal against whose decisions there is a judicial remedy under national law, in the court or tribunal being under an obligation to refer to the Court questions on interpretation; – cannot, in themselves, automatically result, in respect of a court or tribunal against whose decisions there is no judicial remedy under national law, in the court or tribunal being under an obligation to refer to the Court questions on interpretation. A court or tribunal against whose decisions there is no judicial remedy under national law is, however, required, where a question of Community law is raised before it, to comply with its obligation to make a reference, unless it has established that the question raised is irrelevant or that the Community provision in question has already been interpreted by the Court or that the correct application of Community law is so obvious as to leave no scope for any reasonable doubt. The existence of such a possibility must be assessed in the light of the specific characteristics of Community law, the particular difficulties to which its interpretation gives rise and the risk of divergences in judicial decisions within the Community; the existence of the abovementioned binding tariff information must cause that court or tribunal to take particular care in its assessment of whether there is no reasonable doubt as to the correct application of the combined nomenclature in Annex I to Council Re