Judgment — ECLI:EU:C:2005:456
Date: 2005-07-14
Language of the case: Dutch
Court formation: Second Chamber
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Agriculture and Fisheries;Overseas countries and territories;Sugar
Concepts: Association of Overseas Countries and Territories
Procedure: Action for annulment;Appeal - unfounded

Summary of the Judgment 1. Association of the overseas countries and territories — Safeguard measures — Conditions for establishment — Discretion of the Community institutions — Judicial review — Limits (Council Decision 91/482, Art. 109) 2. Association of the overseas countries and territories — Safeguard measures concerning imports from the overseas countries and territories of sugar sector products with EC/OCT cumulation of origin — Principle of proportionality — Judicial review — Limits (Council Decision 91/482, Art. 109(2)) 3. Association of the overseas countries and territories — Safeguard measures concerning imports from the overseas countries and territories — Safeguard measures which do not put in question the preferential status of goods originating in those countries — Exceptional and temporary nature of those measures (Council Decision 91/482, Art. 109(1)) 1. The Community institutions have been given a wide discretion in the application of Article 109 of Decision 91/482 on the association of the overseas countries and territories, which empowers them to take or authorise safeguard measures when certain conditions are met. In those circumstances, the Community Courts must restrict themselves to considering whether the exercise of that discretion contains a manifest error or constitutes a misuse of power or whether the Community institutions clearly exceeded the bounds of their discretion. The depth of the Court’s review must be limited in particular where the Community institutions have to reconcile divergent interests and thus select options within the context of the policy choices which are their own responsibility. The status of that provision as an exception, which flows from its very nature, does not in any way diminish the discretion which the Commission has when it has the difficult task of reconciling divergent interests within the context of the policy choices which are its own responsibility. (see paras 52-54, 56) 2. As regards judicial review of compliance with the principle of proportionality laid down in Article 109(2) of Decision 91/482 on the association of the overseas countries and territories, bearing in mind the wide discretionary power enjoyed by the Commission in particular in matters concerning safeguard measures provided for in Article 109(1) of that decision, the legality of a measure adopted in that sphere can be affected only if the measure is manifestly inappropriate in terms of the objective which the competent institution is seeking to pursue. (see para. 86) 3. Article 109 of Decision 91/482 on the association of the overseas countries and territories (OCTs) expressly authorises the Commission to take safeguard measures in the situations to which it refers. The fact that the Commission adopted this type of measure in respect of certain products originating in the OCTs does not undermine the preferential status which products originating in those countries enjoy under Article 101(1) of that decision, a safeguard measure being, by its very nature, exceptional and temporary. (see para. 94)