Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2001:330
Date: 2001-06-14
Language of the case: Italian
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Agriculture and Fisheries;Fisheries policy
Procedure: Action for annulment - unfounded
Origin: Italy

Summary of the Judgment 
1. Acts of the institutions — Statement of reasons — Obligation — Scope 
(EC Treaty, Art. 190 (now Art. 253 EC)) 
I - 7997 
SUMMARY — CASE C-120/99 
2. Fisheries — Conservation of the resources of the sea — System of fishing quotas — 
Allocation among the Member States of the volume of available catches — Principle of 
relative stability — Implementation where a stock is managed in the framework of an 
international organisation — Whether Council required to base itself on a given 
number of years — Not so required — Discretion of the Community legislature in 
finding basic facts — Judicial review — Limits 
(Council Regulation No 49/1999, Art. 2(1)) 
3. Fisheries — Conservation of the resources of the sea — System of fishing quotas — 
Influence of the Community's accession to the International Convention for the 
Conservation of Atlantic Tunas on the allocation between Member States of the 
volume of available catches — Council entitled to take account of overfishing by a 
Member State in 1997 when Regulation No 49/1999, fixing and allocating the share 
available to the Community of bluefin tuna stocks in the Eastern Atlantic and the 
Mediterranean for 1999, was adopted — Measure not ranking as a punitive penalty 
(Council Regulation No 49/1999, Art. 2(2)) 
4. Fisheries — Conservation of the resources of the sea — System of fishing quotas — 
Allocation among the Member States of the volume of available catches — Allocation, 
by Regulation No 49/1999, of quotas of bluefin tuna in the Eastern Atlantic and the 
Mediterranean for 1999 — Principle of non-discrimination — No breach 
(Council Regulation No 49/1999, Art. 2(2)) 
1. The statement of reasons required by 
Article 190 of the Treaty (now Arti­
cle 253 EC) must be appropriate to the 
measure at issue and must disclose in a 
clear and unequivocal fashion the rea­
soning followed by the institution 
which adopted the measure in question 
in such a way as to enable the persons 
concerned to ascertain the reasons for 
the measure and to enable the compe­
tent court to exercise its power of 
review. The requirement to state rea­
sons must be evaluated according to 
the circumstances of each case, in 
particular the content of the measure 
in question, the nature of the reasons 
given and the interest which the 
addressees of the measure, or other 
parties to whom it is of direct and 
individual concern, may have in 
obtaining explanations. It is not neces­
sary for the reasoning to go into all the 
relevant facts and points of law since 
the question whether the statement of 
reasons meets the requirements of 
Article 190 of the Treaty must be 
assessed with regard not only to its 
wording but also to its context and to 
all the legal rules governing the matter 
in question. That is a fortiori the case 
where the Member States have been 
closely associated with the process of 
drafting the contested measure and are 
thus aware of the reasons underlying 
the measure. 
The fact that a measure departs from a 
more general rule normally increases 
I - 7998 
ITALY v COUNCIL 
the need for a statement of reasons 
since the addressees of the measure 
must be in a position to assess the 
reasons which prompted the institution 
concerned to depart from the rule in 
question and to assess the breadth and 
scope of the derogation from that rule. 
That requirement is reinforced by the 
fact that the derogation changes the 
existing situation and is thereby liable 
to harm the interests of those addres­
sees. 
(see paras 28-29, 53) 
2. Neither in Community legislation nor 
in the case-law of the Court has it ever 
been established that application of the 
principle of relative stability to a stock 
of fish for which no total allowable 
catch or quota has previously been 
fixed requires, whatever the circum­
stances, that the catch quotas should be 
based on a given number of years' 
fishing rather than on one year only. 
Flexibility regarding the reference per­
iod to be used is particularly important 
where the stock in question is managed 
under the auspices of an international 
fisheries organisation and the percen­
tages allocated within the Community 
are normally based on decisions taken 
within the framework of that organisa­
tion. 
Moreover, the Community legislature 
enjoys a considerable power of discre­
tion in circumstances where it is neces­
sary to evaluate a complex economic 
situation, as is the case as far as the 
common agricultural and fisheries poli­
cies are concerned. Its discretion is not 
limited solely to the nature and scope 
of the measures to be taken but also, to 
some extent, to the finding of basic 
facts. Accordingly, in reviewing the 
exercise of such a power, the Court 
must confine itself to examining whe­
ther there has been a manifest error or 
misuse of power or whether the author­
ity in question has clearly exceeded the 
bounds of its discretion. 
(see paras 42, 44) 
3 By acceding to the International Con­
vention for the Conservation of Atlan­
tic Tunas, as amended by the Protocol 
signed in Paris on 10 July 1984, the 
Community was, under Article XIV(6) 
of that Convention, subrogated to the 
rights and obligations of the Member 
States which were already parties to it. 
The Community was therefore fully 
empowered to discuss, in the context of 
negotiations within the International 
Commission for the Conservation of 
Atlantic Tunas relating to the Commu­
nity quota for which it alone was 
competent, all relevant parameters, 
including the consequences of overfish­
ing on the part of certain Member 
States before the date of their accession 
I - 7999 
SUMMARY — CASE C-120/99 
to that organisation. The Community 
was therefore bound by that Commis­
sion's earlier recommendations and, in 
particular, by Recommendation 
No 96-14 which imposes the principle 
that fishing quotas will be reduced if, 
during a given management period, a 
contracting party exceeded its catch 
limits. The reductions for overfishing in 
1997 were in fact imposed on the 
Community, by way of deduction from 
the quota available to it for 1999. 
In those circumstances, a Member 
State cannot claim that it should have 
its own role in the proceedings of the 
International Commission for the Con­
servation of Atlantic Tunas regarding 
the manner in which account is taken 
of overfishing, since the Community 
has assumed full responsibility for such 
negotiations. Nor can that State claim, 
in that context, that it is entitled to 
defend its own particular interests. It 
was only through defence of the Com­
munity interest, a matter for which the 
Community and its institutions have 
sole responsibility, that the interests of 
that State, like those of the other 
Member States, were taken into 
account. 
When Regulation No 49/1999 fixing 
and allocating the share available to 
the Community of bluefin tuna stocks 
in the Eastern Atlantic and the Medi­
terranean for 1999 was adopted, it was 
entirely proper, and did not exceed the 
bounds of its discretion, for the Coun­
cil, faced with the need to apply to the 
Member States concerned the reduc­
tions which related to overfishing by 
those Member States in 1997 but were 
imputed directly to the Community by 
the International Commission for the 
Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, to 
make a State bear the consequences of 
its overfishing in 1997, those conse­
quences having nevertheless been miti­
gated by a Community solidarity 
mechanism. Such a measure, designed 
to ensure that a Member State does not 
gain an advantage in the future from 
overfishing carried out in the past, does 
not rank as a punitive penalty. 
(see paras 63-65, 73, 75) 
4. There can be no discrimination unless 
different rules are applied to compar­
able situations or the same rule is 
applied to different situations. When 
Regulation No 49/1999 fixing and 
allocating the share available to the 
Community of bluefin tuna stocks in 
the Eastern Atlantic and the Mediter­
ranean for 1999 was adopted, the 
Council took fully into account the 
I - 8000 
ITALY v COUNCIL 
differences between the Member States 
concerned since the allocation of the 
Community quota for bluefin tuna for 
1999 takes account both of the princi­
ple of relative stability of fishing activ­
ities of those States and of any over­
fishing by them during 1997. The 
Council did not therefore infringe the 
principle of equal treatment in any 
way. 
(see paras 80-81) 
I - 8001