Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2004:305
Date: 2004-05-18
Language of the case: Italian
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Agriculture and Fisheries;Sugar
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Italy

Summary of the Judgment Agriculture – Common organisation of the markets – Sugar – Price system – Method of computing consumption of sugar – Sugar incorporated into processed products – Taking into account of products imported into the national territory – Exclusion of products exported to another Member State – Whether permissible (Council Regulation No 1361/98) The Commission did not make a manifest error of assessment when it adopted, through Regulation No 1361/98 fixing, for the marketing year 1998/99, the derived intervention prices for white sugar, the intervention price for raw sugar, the minimum prices for A and B beet, and the amount of compensation for storage costs, a method of computing estimated consumption of sugar that did not regard as consumed in the Member State concerned sugar incorporated into processed products and exported to other States, since, according to that method, sugar contained in processed products imported from other States is as a matter of fact taken into account in the computation of that consumption. (see para. 40, operative part)