Judgment — ECLI:EU:T:2001:281
Date: 2001-12-06
Language of the case: Spanish
Court formation: Third Chamber
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Agriculture and Fisheries;Fisheries policy
Concepts: Community rules;Basis of liability;Principle of the protection of legitimate expectations;Principle of proportionality
Procedure: Action for damages - unfounded
Origin: Spain

Summary of the Judgment 
1. Non-contractual liability — Conditions — Legislative measure involving choices of 
economic policy — Sufficiently serious breach of Community law — Meaning 
(Art. 288, second para., EC) 
II - 3597 
SUMMARY — CASE T-196/99 
2. Fisheries — Conservation of marine resources — System of fishing quotas — Allo­
cation between Member States of the volume of available catches — Discretion of the 
Community institutions 
(Council Regulation No 3760/92, Art. 8(4)) 
3. Community law — Principles — Proportionality — Measures to conserve marine 
resources — Discretion of the Community institutions — Judicial review — Limits 
4. Community law — Principles — Protection of legitimate expectations — Limits — 
Amendments to rules concerning the common agricultural policy — Amendments 
made to a total allowable catch or a fishing quota in the context of international 
negotiations 
5. Fisheries — Conservation of marine resources — System of fishing quotas — Prin­
ciple of relative stability — Application to measures determining, and not distributing, 
the volume of available catches for the Community in the context of international 
negotiations — Excluded 
(Council Regulations No 3760/92, Art. 8(4), and No 1761/95) 
6. Non-contractual liability — Conditions — Lawful act — Real damage, causal link 
and unusual and special damage — Cumulative nature 
(Art. 288 EC) 
1. For Community law to recognise a 
right to reparation for loss caused by 
legislative measures, three conditions 
must be met, namely that the rule of 
law infringed be intended to confer 
rights on individuals, that the breach be 
sufficiently serious, and, finally, that 
there be a direct causal link between 
the breach of the obligation resting on 
the Community and the damage sus­
tained by the injured parties. 
For there to be a sufficiently serious 
breach of the rule of law in question, 
there must be a serious and obvious 
disregard by a Community institution 
of the limits on its discretion. 
(see paras 42, 45) 
2. When, in implementing the common 
agricultural policy, Community institu­
tions are called upon to evaluate a 
complex economic situation, the dis­
cretion which they have is not limited 
solely to the nature and scope of the 
measures to be taken but also applies, 
to some extent, to the finding of basic 
II - 3598 
AREA COVA AND OTHERS v COUNCIL AND COMMISSION 
facts. That is so where, pursuant to 
Article 8(4) of Regulation No 3760/92 
establishing a Community system for 
fisheries and aquaculture, the Council 
fixes the total allowable catches and 
distributes fishing opportunities among 
Member States. It is a fortiori so where 
the conservation measure has been 
decided upon not by the Community 
alone but by an international organisa­
tion in which the Community partici­
pates in the same way as all the other 
contracting parties. 
(see paras 46-47) 
3. In order to establish whether a provi­
sion of Community law complies with 
the principle of proportionality it is 
necessary to ascertain whether the 
means which it employs are appropri­
ate and necessary to attain the objec­
tive sought. However, in an area such 
as conserving marine resources, where 
the Community institutions have a 
broad discretion, the lawfulness of a 
measure can be affected only if it is 
manifestly inappropriate having regard 
to the objective pursued. The Court's 
review must be limited in particular if 
the Council has to reconcile divergent 
interests and thus select options within 
the context of the policy choices which 
are its own responsibility. 
(see para. 78) 
4. Whilst the protection of legitimate 
expectations is one of the fundamental 
principles of the Community, economic 
operators cannot have a legitimate 
expectation that an existing situation 
which is capable of being altered by the 
Community institutions in the exercise 
of their discretion will be maintained, 
especially in an area such as the 
common agricultural policy, in which 
the institutions have-a wide discretion. 
It follows that economic operators 
cannot claim a vested right to the 
maintenance of an advantage arising 
from Community legislation and which 
they enjoyed at a given time. That 
applies even more strongly in the 
context of international negotiations 
which, by their very nature, imply 
concessions on either side and the 
negotiation of a compromise accepted 
by all the contracting parties. An 
applicant cannot therefore claim to 
have a legitimate expectation in the 
maintenance of a total allowable catch 
or a quota where fishing takes place in 
the waters of non -member countries or 
under the authority of an international 
II - 3599 
SUMMARY — CASE T-196/99 
organisation and the volume of catches 
must necessarily be negotiated with 
non-member countries whose wishes 
do not necessarily coincide with those 
of the Community. 
(see paras 122-124) 
5. The principle of relative stability, laid 
down in Article 8(4) of Regulation 
No 3760/92 establishing a Community 
system for fisheries and aquaculture, is 
intended to ensure for each Member 
State a share of the Community's total 
allowable catches, determined essen­
tially on the basis of the catches from 
which traditional fishing activities, the 
local populations dependent on fish­
eries and related industries of that 
Member State benefited before the 
quota system was established. That 
principle, which is peculiar to Commu­
nity law, relates only to the allocation 
among the various Member States of 
the volume of catches available to the 
Community. However, the bilateral 
fisheries agreement with Canada in 
the context of the Convention on 
Future Multilateral Cooperation in 
the North West Atlantic Fisheries and 
Regulation No 1761/95 establishing 
for 1995 a Community quota of 
5 013 tonnes for catches of Greenland 
halibut in North Atlantic Fisheries 
Organisation sub-areas 2 and 3 do 
not allocate the volume of catches 
available to the Community among 
the Member States but determine that 
volume, and are thus at a different 
stage from that to which that principle 
applies. Moreover, that determination 
took place in the context of interna­
tional negotiations subject only to rules 
of international law, to which the 
principle in question is unknown. 
(see paras 150-151) 
6. Should the principle of no-fault liabi­
lity of the Community be recognised in 
Community law, a precondition for 
such liability would in any event be 
the cumulative satisfaction of three 
conditions, namely the reality of the 
damage allegedly suffered, the causal 
link between it and the act complained 
of on the part of the Community 
institutions, and the unusual and spe­
cial nature of that damage. The cumu­
lative nature of those conditions means 
that if one of them is not satisfied, the 
Community cannot incur non-contrac­
tual liability in respect of a lawful act 
of its institutions. 
(see paras 171, 179) 
II - 3600