Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2002:226
Date: 2002-04-16
Language of the case: Italian
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Agriculture and Fisheries;External relations;Fruit and vegetables;Commercial policy;Bananas
Procedure: Appeal - unfounded;Action for annulment - inadmissible;Action for damages;Action for failure to act;Appeal - successful
Origin: Italy

Summary of the Judgment 
1. Agriculture — Common organisation of the markets — Bananas — Import arrange­
ments — Tariff quota — Taking into account of the difficulties inherent in the 
transition from national arrangements to the common organisation of the market 
(Council Regulation No 404/93, Art. 19(2) and 30) 
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SUMMARY — CASE C-312/00 P 
2 Non-contractual liability — Conditions — Sufficiently serious breach of Community 
law — Discretion of the institution in the adoption of measures 
(Art. 228 EC, second para.) 
3. Appeals — Pleas in law — Grounds of a judgment vitiated by an infringement of 
Community law — Operative part well founded for other legal reasons — Dismissal 
4. Appeals — Pleas in law — Review by the Court of Justice of the legal char­
acterisation of the facts — Permissible 
(Art. 225 EC; EC Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 51) 
5. Actions for annulment — Natural or legal persons — Measures of direct and 
individual concern to them — Refusal by the Commission to adopt regulatory 
measures enabling importers of bananas from a non-Member State to deal with 
difficulties arising from the fall in production consequent on exceptional climatic 
conditions — Inadmissible 
(Art. 230 EC, fourth para.; Council Regulation No 404/93, Arts 16(3), 18 and 19(1)) 
1. While Article 30 of Regulation 
No 404/93 on the common organi­
sation of the market in bananas auth­
orises and, according to circumstances, 
requires the Commission to lay down 
rules catering for cases of hardship 
arising from the fact that importers of 
third-country bananas or non-tradi­
tional ACP bananas meet difficulties 
threatening their existence when an 
exceptionally low quota is allocated 
to them on the basis of the reference 
years to be taken into consideration 
under Article 19(2) of that regulation, 
it is by no means ruled out that 
Article 30 could also apply to other 
types of difficulties, since they are 
inherent in the transition from national 
arrangements existing before that regu­
lation entered into force to the com­
mon organisation of the market. 
(see paras 46-47) 
2. Community law confers a right to 
reparation where three conditions are 
met: the rule of law infringed must be 
intended to confer rights on individ­
uals; the breach must be sufficiently 
serious; and there must be a direct 
causal link between the breach of the 
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COMMISSION v CAMAR AND TICO 
obligation resting on the author of the 
act and the damage sustained by the 
injured parties. As to the second con­
dition, the decisive test for finding that 
a breach of Community law is suffi­
ciently serious is whether the Commu­
nity institution concerned manifestly 
and gravely disregarded the limits on 
its discretion. Where that institution 
has only considerably reduced, or even 
no, discretion, the mere infringement 
of Community law may be sufficient to 
establish the existence of a sufficiently 
serious breach. It follows that the 
decisive test for determining whether 
there has been such an infringement is 
not the individual nature of the act in 
question, but the discretion available to 
the institution when it was adopted. 
(see paras 53-55) 
3. Where the grounds of a judgment of 
the Court of First Instance disclose an 
infringement of Community law but 
the operative part of the judgment is 
shown to be well founded for other 
legal reasons, the appeal must be dis­
missed. 
(see para. 57) 
4. While it is true that under Article 225 
EC and Article 51 of the Statute of the 
Court of Justice an appeal lies on a 
point of law only and that, therefore, 
the Court of First Instance has, in 
principle, sole jurisdiction to find and 
appraise the facts, the Court of Justice 
nevertheless has jurisdiction to review 
the legal characterisation of those facts 
by the Court of First Instance and the 
legal conclusions it has drawn from 
them. 
(see para. 69) 
5. A measure of general application such 
as a regulation can be of individual 
concern to natural and legal persons 
only if it affects them by reason of 
certain attributes peculiar to them, or 
by reason of a factual situation which 
differentiates them from all other per­
sons and distinguishes them individ­
ually in the same way as the addressee. 
The main importers of Somalian 
bananas cannot be considered to have 
been concerned individually by the 
regulation which, according to them, 
the Commission should have adopted, 
under Article 16(3) of Regulation 
No 404/93, on the common organi­
sation of the market in bananas, in 
order to adjust the tariff quota fixed by 
Article 18 of that regulation to deal 
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SUMMARY — CASE C-312/00 P 
with the effect on banana production in 
Somalia of the exceptional floods in 
1997 and 1998. 
Even if that regulation could have 
derogated, in respect of the fraction of 
the tariff quota which is adjusted, from 
the allocation formula fixed by 
A r t i c l e 1 9 ( 1 ) of R e g u l a t i o n 
No 404/93, it would have concerned 
the said importers only by reason of 
their objective status of importers of 
Somalian bananas, in the same way as 
every other operator in a similar situ­
ation. 
(see paras 73, 75-76, 79) 
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