Judgment_paragraph 43 · Südzucker AG and Others v Hauptzollamt Hamburg-Jonas (C-608/10, C-10/11, C-23/11)

43Moreover, and contrary to what Südzucker and WEGO claimed during the hearing, Article 5(7)(a) of Regulation No 800/1999 and the second subparagraph of Article 24(1) of Regulation No 1291/2000, which seek to ensure the effectiveness of physical checks carried out by the customs authorities, do not merely create ‘secondary’ obligations, the infringement of which gives rise only to less strict penalties than those provided for in the case of failure to comply with a principal obligation. On the contrary, according to settled case-law, those checks are necessary so that the objectives of the European Union legislation on export refunds may be fulfilled (see, to that effect, Case C-77/08 Dachsberger & Söhne [2009] ECR I-2097, paragraph 41 and the case-law cited).