64Furthermore, unlike the tax at issue in the case which gave rise to the judgment in Braathens (C‑346/97, EU:C:1999:291), which was levied directly on certain air transport operators, the tax introduced by KernbrStG is not levied directly on the consumer of the excise product but on the electricity producer. It is true that the financial burden of that tax could, in principle, as the Advocate General observed at point 61 of his Opinion, be borne indirectly in its entirety by the final consumer if the producer included the amount of that tax in the price charged for each amount of the product released for consumption, thus rendering the tax neutral for the producer. However, it is apparent from the analysis carried out by the referring court on that point that the tax introduced by KernbrStG cannot be passed on in its entirety to the final electricity consumer in view of, inter alia, the particular nature of that product, it not being possible to determine the origin of any given amount of electricity, and of the pricing mechanism for electricity applied in Germany, which is characterised by the fact that the price of electricity is, essentially, a single price arrived at by negotiation on the energy exchange market.
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