European Union – Customs and excise. The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that arts 7(2) and 8(6) of Council Directive 2011/64/EU (on the structure and rates of excise duty applied to manufactured tobacco) should be interpreted as precluding a provision of national law, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, which, rather than establishing an identical minimum excise duty that was applicable to all cigarettes, established a minimum excise duty that was applicable only to cigarettes with a retail selling price lower than that of cigarettes in the most popular price category.