Judgment — ECLI:EU:C:2026:254
Date: 2026-03-26
Language of the case: Italian
Court formation: Sixth Chamber
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Italy

Summary C-294/25 – 1 
Case C-294/25 
Summary of the request for a preliminary ruling pursuant to Article 98(1) of 
the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice 
Date lodged: 
17 April 2025 
Referring court: 
Consiglio di Stato (Italy) 
Date of the decision to refer: 
15 April 2025 
Appellants: 
UD, VO, GT and KJ, in their own names and as members of the 
agricultural holding UD e co. 
BF, in their own name and as owner of the agricultural holding 
bearing the same name 
IJ, BP and LR, in their own names and as members of the 
agricultural holding IJ, BP e LR s.s. 
Respondent: 
Agenzia Veneta per i pagamenti (AVEPA) 
  
Subject matter of the main proceedings 
Appeals before the Consiglio di Stato (Council of State, Italy) against three 
judgments of the Tribunale Amministrativo Regionale per il Veneto (Regional 
Administrative Court, Veneto; ‘the Veneto TAR’), concerning demands for 
payment issued by the Agenzia Veneta per i pagamenti in agricoltura (AVEPA, 
the paying agency for the Veneto region, Italy; ‘AVEPA’) as an additional levy 
payable by producers for milk deliveries to non-approved purchasers in the 
2005/2006 period. 
EN 
SUMMARY OF THE REQUEST FOR A PRELIMINARY RULING – CASE C-294/25 
 
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Subject matter and legal basis of the request 
The request for a preliminary ruling concerns the compatibility with EU law, in 
particular Articles 23 and 24(1) of Regulation (EC) No 595/2004 and the 
previously applicable provisions of Regulation (EC) No 1392/2001, and with the 
principles of legal certainty, legitimate expectations, proportionality, equality and 
non-discrimination, of national legislation that establishes an additional levy on 
producers for deliveries of milk to a purchaser that is not approved under that 
regulation. 
Question referred for a preliminary ruling 
Should [EU] law, in particular Articles 23 and 24(1) of Regulation (EC) 
No 595/2004 – and, before that, Articles 13 and 14(1) of Regulation (EC) 
No 1392/2001 – and the principles of legal certainty, legitimate expectations, 
proportionality, equality and non-discrimination, be interpreted as precluding a 
provision of national law that, in the event of delivery to a non-approved 
purchaser, requires that the milk or milk equivalent delivered is subject to an 
additional levy payable by the producer? 
Provisions of European Union law relied on 
Recitals 6 and 7 and Articles 23 and 24(1) of Regulation (EC) No 595/2004 
Articles 13 and 14(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1392/2001 
Principles of legal certainty, legitimate expectations, proportionality, equality and 
non-discrimination 
Provisions of national law relied on 
Article 4 of decreto-legge n. 49/2003, convertito, con modificazioni dalla legge n. 
119 del 2003 (Decree-Law No 49/2003, converted with amendments by Law 
No 119 of 2003; ‘Decree-Law No 49/2003’), according to which: 
‘1. The approval of purchasing undertakings referred to in Article 13 of 
Regulation (EC) No 1392/2001 shall be subject to verification of compliance with 
the requirements set out in that text, and with the provisions of the decree referred 
to in Article 1(7). The regions shall establish a specific register of purchasers and 
shall publish the list of approved purchasers before the start of each marketing 
year. 
2. Each producer shall ensure that the purchaser to which it intends to deliver milk 
is approved under this article. Milk or milk equivalent delivered to a purchaser 
that is not approved shall be subject in its entirety to an additional levy payable by 
the producer. 
AVEPA 
 
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3. The regions and autonomous provinces shall withdraw the approval of 
purchasers already approved if the requirements laid down in paragraph 1 are no 
longer met, or in the other cases provided for in this decree. A purchaser subject to 
a final withdrawal measure shall be required to inform its suppliers of the measure 
within 15 days of notification. If it fails to comply with this obligation, any 
quantities of milk supplied after the withdrawal takes effect and until the end of 
the on-going marketing period shall be subject to an additional levy payable by 
the purchaser. The purchaser concerned must be notified of the withdrawal of 
approval by the competent region or autonomous province and this withdrawal 
must be made known to producers by appropriate publicity mechanisms. The 
withdrawal shall take effect from the 45th day following notification and in any 
event by the end of the on-going marketing period, for which the obligations 
relating to the fulfilment of obligations by purchasers shall remain unchanged. 
4. Purchasers operating without the approval referred to in this article shall be 
subject to an administrative penalty equal to the amount of the additional levy on 
the entire quantity of product supplied without approval.’ 
Succinct presentation of the facts and procedure in the main proceedings 
1 The appellants are members or owners of three agricultural holdings that delivered 
their milk yield during the 2005/2006 milk production year to the cooperative 
Latte 2001 s.c.r.l., despite the fact that that company’s status as a primary 
purchaser had been withdrawn by a decree of the Direttore generale agricoltura 
della Regione Lombardia (Director of the Department of Agriculture of the 
Lombardy Region) on 1 February 2005. 
2 AVEPA had therefore issued three demands for payment to those holdings for 
delivering milk in the 2005/2006 period to a non-approved purchaser, in breach of 
Article 24(1) of Regulation (EC) No 595/2004 and Article 4(2) of Decree-Law 
No 49/2003. 
3 The appellants challenged these measures before the Veneto TAR, arguing that 
they were unlawful, inter alia, because: the measures analogously extended the 
limitation period laid down in Article 4(2) of Decree-Law No 49/2003, in breach 
of Article 1 of legge n. 689/1981 (Law No 689/1981) (on administrative 
penalties); the individual holdings had not been notified of the loss of the 
undertaking’s status as a purchaser, and should therefore be considered exempt 
from liability; and the penalty imposed did not take into account the suspension of 
the withdrawal measure until 8 April 2005, with the measure taking effect from 
1 April 2005. 
4 In separate rulings, the Veneto TAR upheld only the grounds relating to the 
amount of the penalties due to the suspension of the withdrawal measure until 
8 April 2005 and dismissed the actions in all other respects, denying that the 
measures were punitive in nature. 
SUMMARY OF THE REQUEST FOR A PRELIMINARY RULING – CASE C-294/25 
 
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5 The members and owners of the three agricultural holdings have appealed the 
above judgments before the Council of State. AVEPA has entered an appearance 
in all proceedings, requesting that the appeals be dismissed. Following the 
meetings held on 20 March 2025 and 1 April 2025, the Council of State joined the 
cases, stayed the proceedings and referred the above question to the Court of 
Justice for a preliminary ruling. 
Essential arguments of the parties in the main proceedings 
According to the appellants, the additional levy imposed on producers by the 
Italian legislation is punitive in nature because: 
(i) Article 24(1) of Regulation (EC) No 594/2004 requires producers to make 
sure that the purchasers they are supplying are approved and permits Member 
States to lay down penalties for deliveries to non-approved purchasers. 
(ii) the provision in Article 4(2) of Decree-Law No 49/2003 – in establishing 
that milk or milk equivalent delivered to a purchaser that is not approved will be 
subject in its entirety to an additional levy payable by the producer – essentially 
incorporated the penalty envisaged by EU law; 
(iii) classifying that measure as anything other than punitive would entail the 
non-application of domestic law for having introduced a levy that is unrelated to 
the EU system, which permits that a levy be imposed only for quantities 
exceeding the established quota; 
(iv) the envisaged measure is not a market regulation measure but a punitive one, 
applied to all quantities of milk delivered to non-approved purchasers and not 
simply to the portion delivered in excess of the quota allocated; 
(v) the levy regulates the market by limiting production, while the measure 
applied penalises behaviour that circumvents the obligation to verify whether 
purchasers are approved. 
6 With regard to the measure referred to in Article 4(2) of Decree-Law No 49/2003, 
the Sezioni Unite della Corte suprema di Cassazione (Combined Chambers of the 
Supreme Court of Cassation, Italy) (Judgment No 18195 of 11 August 2009) have, 
however, held that: 
(i) ‘the status of the additional levy as an administrative penalty in the latter case 
cannot be inferred from the wording of Article 24[(1)] of Regulation 
No 595/2004, … since that is a provision of a general nature that must be 
implemented, within their discretion, by the Member States; 
(ii) in regulating the consequences of supplying milk to a non-approved purchaser, 
while Article 4 of Law No 119 of 2003 states in paragraph 2, with regard to the 
producer, that “milk or milk equivalent delivered to a purchaser that is not 
AVEPA 
 
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approved shall be subject in its entirety to an additional levy payable by the 
producer”, it states, however, with regard to the purchaser, that “purchasers 
operating without the approval” within the meaning of Article 13 of Regulation 
(EC) No 1392/2001 “shall be subject to an administrative penalty equal to the 
amount of the additional levy on the entire quantity of product supplied without 
approval”; 
(iii) it is clear from the wording of the above provision that, while, as regards the 
producer (in line with the application of an additional levy for the supply of milk 
exceeding the quota allocated), the additional levy is viewed exclusively as a 
measure (to rebalance the market) to which milk delivered to a non-approved 
purchaser must be subject, as regards the purchaser, it is viewed not as such a 
measure, which is its specific nature, but exclusively as a reference parameter for 
determining the amount of the final penalty to be imposed on the purchaser as an 
administrative penalty; 
(iv) this different wording of the abovementioned provision logically leads to the 
conclusion that the additional levy imposed on the producer cannot be classified 
as an administrative penalty (in the strict sense); 
(v) this solution is also supported by the interpretation given in the judgment of 
25 March 2004 by the Court of Justice, which, as mentioned above, stated that the 
additional levies on cow’s milk and its derivatives (milk products) introduced by 
Regulation (EC) No 856/84 (subsequently amended and supplemented by 
Regulation (EC) No 3950/92) in order to rebalance that market sector, fall within 
the regulatory instruments of the agricultural market that are not of a punitive 
nature; 
(vi) if the additional levy on milk supplied in excess of the allocated quota is one 
of the agricultural market regulation instruments that are not administrative 
penalties, the same status must be attributed to the additional levy imposed on 
producers for milk supplied to non-approved purchasers, since this also constitutes 
conduct likely to circumvent [EEC] legislation aimed at reducing the imbalance 
between supply and demand for milk and milk products, as well as the resulting 
structural surpluses, and at achieving a better market balance.’ 
Succinct presentation of the reasoning in the request for a preliminary ruling 
7 The referring court observes that: (i) the text in Article 23(1) of Regulation (EC) 
No 595/2004 provides that ‘to be able to buy milk from producers and to operate 
in the territory of a Member State, purchasers must be approved by that Member 
State’; (ii) the text of Article 24(1) of that regulation provides that ‘producers shall 
ensure that purchasers to whom they deliver are approved. The Member States 
shall lay down penalties where deliveries are made to non-approved purchasers’. 
The (EC) regulations [Regulation (EC) No 1392/2001] had already provided that: 
(i) ‘1. To be able to operate in the territory of a Member State, purchasers must be 
approved by that Member State’ (Article 13(1)); and (ii) ‘Producers shall be 
SUMMARY OF THE REQUEST FOR A PRELIMINARY RULING – CASE C-294/25 
 
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required to ensure that purchasers to whom they deliver are approved. The 
Member States may lay down penalties where deliveries are made to non-
approved purchasers’ (Article 14(1)). 
8 The text laid down in Article 24(1) of Regulation (EC) No 595/2004 therefore 
requires Member States to establish penalties, while leaving it to their discretion 
to determine the types and content of such ‘penalties’, without specifying the 
persons responsible, the objective conditions for the corresponding offence or, 
finally, the penalties to be imposed. 
9 In implementing the corresponding provision of Article 14(1) of Regulation (EC) 
No 1392/2001, Italian law has provided for two different measures. Indeed, 
Article 4 of Decree-Law No 49/2003 established: (i) in paragraph 2 that ‘each 
producer shall ensure that the purchaser to which it intends to deliver milk is 
approved … milk or milk equivalent delivered to a purchaser that is not approved 
shall be subject in its entirety to an additional levy payable by the producer’, and 
(ii) in paragraph 4 that ‘purchasers operating without the approval … shall be 
subject to an administrative penalty equal to the amount of the additional levy on 
the entire quantity of product supplied without approval’. 
10 The national legislature has therefore expressly laid down an administrative 
penalty only for purchasers operating without approval, while it has not classified 
the imposition of an additional levy on the producer as a penalty. These two 
provisions are also similar in terms of the consequence of the conduct, but they 
differ with regard to the party responsible and the legal classification expressed by 
the legislature. In the case referred to in paragraph 2 of that Article, the party 
responsible is the producer and the nature of the measure is not specified by the 
legislature, while in the case referred to in paragraph 4 of that Article, the party 
responsible is the purchaser and the measure is expressly classified as an 
administrative penalty. 
11 The referring court, agreeing with the interpretation adopted by the Supreme 
Court of Cassation in the abovementioned judgment and by its own case-law 
(Council of State, Chamber VI, judgment No 5261 of 31 October 2013), notes that 
that interpretation does not appear to be contrary to: 
(i) the principle of legal certainty (see judgment of the Court of Justice of 
27 February 2025, C-277/14, paragraph 55), given that the measure is provided 
for by a general rule of domestic law that ensures the predictability of the outcome 
in the event of a breach of the obligation imposed on the producer; 
(ii) the principle of legitimate expectations, which can be invoked in cases where a 
national administrative authority has created justified expectations because of 
specific assurances that such expectations would be met (see judgment of the 
Court of Justice of 19 December 2024, C-224/24 and C-290/24), given that there 
were no such assurances in the present case; 
AVEPA 
 
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(iii) the principle of proportionality (see judgment of the Court of Justice of 
8 March 2022, Case C-205/20, paragraph 31), in that the measure is appropriate 
for restoring the balance of the system that is disrupted in the event of delivery to 
a non-approved purchaser, is consistent with the specific EU law and, in 
particular, with the need for controls and obligations serving to regulate 
production, and does not impose an excessive burden on the party concerned, 
since the existence of a punitive effect in the broad sense of the measure – 
determined by the flat-rate and automatic nature of the levy – is, in any event, a 
normal situation resulting from the ‘withdrawal’ of the delivery from the control 
mechanisms; 
(iv) the principle of equality and non-discrimination laid down in Articles 20 and 
21 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which ‘requires 
that comparable situations should not be treated differently and that different 
situations should not be treated in the same way, unless such different treatment is 
objectively justified’ (see judgment of the Court of Justice of 8 March 2022, 
C-205/20, paragraph 54, and of 2 September 2021, C-930/19, paragraph 57 and 
the case-law cited), thus justifying a ‘special’, automatic and flat-rate levy for 
those who deliver milk to non-approved purchasers, instead of the ‘ordinary’ levy, 
which is based solely on whether and to what extent the quota has been exceeded. 
12 The referring court considers, in essence, that EU law, and in particular 
Article 24(1) of Regulation (EC) No 595/2004 (and, previously, Article 14(1) of 
Regulation (EC) No 1392/2001), does not preclude the introduction of a levy, 
even a ‘special’ one such as the levy at issue in the present case, imposed on a 
producer who delivers milk to a non-approved purchaser. However, since this is a 
question concerning the interpretation of EU law, on which there is no specific 
case-law from the Court of Justice, and since it cannot be considered that the 
interpretation given above is so obvious that it should be accepted by the courts of 
last instance of the other Member States, the referring court considers it 
appropriate to refer the above question to the Court of Justice in accordance with 
the provisions of Article 19(3)(b) of the Treaty on European Union and 
Article 267 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.