Judgment — ECLI:EU:T:2003:60
Date: 2003-03-06
Language of the case: Italian
Court formation: Second Chamber
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Agriculture and Fisheries;European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (EAGGF)
Concepts: Structural reform of agriculture: joint action;Force majeure;Principle of proportionality
Procedure: Action for annulment - unfounded
Origin: Italy

Summary of the Judgment 
1. Community law — Principles — Force majeure — Scope — EAGGF financial 
assistance — Whether applicable as a result of administrative practice, even where 
no legislation requires that it be taken into account 
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SUMMARY — JOINED CASES T-61/00 AND T-62/00 
2. Community law — Principles — Force majeure — Failure to implement planned aid 
for the processing and marketing of agricultural products — Lack of significant 
economic activity as a result of circumstances which cannot he regarded as beyond 
control, unusual or unforeseeable — Conditions for application not satisfied 
(Council Regulation No 355/77) 
3. Agriculture — Common agricultural policy — Structural reform — Common meas­
ures — Improvement of the conditions under which agricultural products are 
processed and marketed — E AGG F financial assistance discontinued for breach of 
fundamental obligations — Principle of proportionality •—• Breach — None 
(Council Regulation No 355/77) 
1. The existence of an administrative 
practice, even one that is not based on 
any legislation, under which the Com­
mission considers whether there is a 
case of force majeure which should 
cause it to refrain from discontinuing 
EAGGF financial assistance may bind 
the Commission each time a case of 
force majeure is pleaded before it. 
(see para. 72) 
2. The concept of force majeure, even if it 
does not assume absolute impossibility, 
requires none the less that the failure to 
complete the act in question must be 
due to unusual and unforeseeable cir­
cumstances beyond the control of the 
party by whom it is pleaded and the 
consequences of which could not have 
been avoided even if all due care had 
been exercised. 
Force majeure cannot be relied on for 
the purpose of contesting the merits of 
a decision to discontinue assistance 
granted under Regulation No 355/77 
to a project designed to a project 
designed to improve the processing 
and marketing of certain products, on 
the ground that there is no significant 
economic activity, in the case of: 
— disturbances of the activity of an 
establishment as a result of judicial 
problems attributable to the admin­
istrator of the management com­
pany to which the trader concerned 
has entrusted the management of 
that activity; by setting up that 
management company in order to 
perform its obligations, the trader 
concerned assumes all the risks 
which a diligent trader can and 
should reasonably foresee in the 
context of that agreement, including 
fraudulent or negligent conduct on 
the part of the administrator of that 
management company; 
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APOL AND AIPO v COMMISSION 
— theft, which is a normal and fore­
seeable risk in the context of day-
to-day trade; 
— market trends, which must be 
regarded as being inherent in the 
normal commercial risks which any 
reasonably well-informed trader 
should have been able to foresee; 
— fraudulent practices if they were 
perpetrated by criminal elements 
which infiltrated the trader; 
— the conduct of the national adminis­
tration if it is not established that 
such conduct made it impossible for 
the trader to perform his obligations 
under the Community rules. 
(see paras 74-75, 77, 79-81) 
3. The infringement of obligations whose 
observance is of fundamental import­
ance to the proper functioning of a 
Community system may be penalised 
by forfeiture of a right conferred by 
Community legislation. 
By supplying the Commission with 
incorrect information on the number 
of storage and packaging facilities in 
existence when it submitted its appli­
cation for aid under Regulation 
No 355/77 on common measures to 
improve the conditions under which 
agricultural products are processed and 
marketed, which is liable to mislead the 
Commission regarding the economic 
basis of the project envisaged, a trader 
breaches a fundamental obligation. In 
those circumstances, discontinuance of 
the EAGGF financial aid is in accord­
ance with the principle of proportional­
ity. 
Neither a trader's financial situation, 
nor the possibility of the Community 
assistance being discontinued concur­
rently with any administrative fines 
being imposed by the national auth­
orities which contributed to the assist­
ance, is such as to cast doubt on the 
proportionate nature of the decision to 
discontinue that assistance. 
The possibility of the Community pen­
alty being applied concurrently with 
national administrative fines is purely 
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SUMMARY — JOINED CASES T-61/00 AND T-62/00 
hypothetical and in any event is not 
sufficient in itself to justify a finding 
that the decision to discontinue the 
assistance is disproportionate. It will be 
for the trader concerned to seek relief 
before the national courts, should the 
need to do so arise, on the grounds that 
concurrent application of Community 
and national penalties constitutes a 
breach of the principle of proportional­
ity. 
(see paras 96, 120-122) 
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