Judgment — ECLI:EU:C:2000:366
Date: 2000-07-06
Language of the case: Italian
Court formation: Sixth Chamber
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Agriculture and Fisheries;Tobacco
Concepts: Exclusive nature of the role of the national court in making the reference;Principle of the protection of legitimate expectations;Raw tobacco
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Italy

Summary of the Judgment 
1. Preliminary rulings — Reference to the Court — Determination of the questions to be 
referred — Exclusive competence of the national court 
(EC Treaty, Art. 177 (now Art. 234 EC) 
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SUMMARY — CASE C-402/98 
2. Community law — Principles — Protection of legitimate expectations — Limits — 
Amendments to rules concerning a common organisation of the market — Alteration 
of the premium system in the raw tobacco sector — Discretion of the institutions 
3. Agriculture — Common organisation of the markets — Raw tobacco — Replacement 
of the system of processing quotas with a system of production quotas during a 
production year — Principle of the protection of legitimate expectations — Infringe­
ment — None 
(Council Regulation No 711/95; Commission Regulation No 1066/95) 
1. Article 177 of the Treaty (now Arti­
cle 234 EC) establishes direct coopera­
tion between the Court of Justice and 
the national courts by way of a non-
contentious procedure excluding any 
initiative of the parties who are merely 
invited to be heard in the course of that 
procedure. Under Article 177 it is for 
the national court, and not the parties 
to the main action, to bring a matter 
before the Court of Justice. Since the 
right to determine the questions to be 
brought before the Court devolves 
upon the national court alone, the 
parties may not change the tenor of 
the questions. 
(see para. 29) 
2. 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; 
this is particularly true in an area such 
as the common organisation of the 
markets, the object of which entails 
constant adjustments to meet changes 
in the economic situation. It follows 
that economic operators cannot claim a 
vested right to the maintenance of an 
advantage which they derive from the 
establishment of the common organi­
sation of the markets and which they 
enjoyed at a given time. That is the case 
as regards the fixing of premiums paid 
by processing undertakings at the time 
of delivery of the tobacco by tradi­
tional producers, which can be reduced 
from one year to the next. 
(see paras 37, 53) 
3. In the context of the common organi­
sation of the market in raw tobacco, 
the fact that, in the course of a 
production year, the processing quota 
system was replaced by a production 
quota system by Regulation No 711/95 
amending Regulation No 2075/92 on 
the common organisation of the mar-
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ATB AND OTHERS 
ket in raw tobacco does not amount to 
an infringement of legitimate expecta­
tions or of the principles underlying the 
common organisation of the market in 
raw tobacco, since the economic opera­
tors concerned had known since 
30 July 1992 (the date on which Reg­
ulation No 2075/92 was published) 
that the production quota system 
would apply to the 1995 harvest and 
what quantities would be available for 
the relevant harvest in respect of the 
varieties grown in Italy and before the 
planting out of the young plants, which 
in that Member State takes place 
towards the end of April. 
Nor were the legitimate expectations of 
the tobacco producers adversely 
affected by the alterations made by 
Regulation No 1066/95 laying down 
detailed rules for the application of 
Regulation No 2075/92 as regards the 
raw tobacco quota system for the 
1995, 1996 and 1997 harvests to the 
method of calculating the individual 
quotas to be allocated to the producers, 
since those alterations were limited to 
adapting to the production quota sys­
tem which was introduced on a perma­
nent basis by Regulation No 711/95 
the detailed rules of that method, 
which continued to be based on the 
average quantities delivered during the 
three years preceding the year of the 
last harvest, broken down by group of 
varieties, excluding, however, the 1992 
harvest. 
(see paras 42, 45, 47, 49, 51) 
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