Order;Summary — ECLI:EU:C:2023:752
Date: 2023-10-05
Language of the case: Romanian
Court formation: Eighth Chamber
Subject matter: Agriculture and Fisheries
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Romania

Summary C-84/23 – 1 
Case C-84/23 
Summary of the request for a preliminary ruling pursuant to Article 98(1) of 
the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice 
Date lodged: 
14 February 2023 
Referring court: 
Înalta Curte de Casație și Justiție (Romania) 
Date of the decision to refer: 
5 October 2022 
Applicant for revision: 
SC Dinamel Trade SRL 
Defendant: 
Ministerul Agriculturii și Dezvoltării Rurale 
  
Subject matter of the main proceedings 
Proceedings brought by SC Dinamel Trade SRL against the judgment of the 
Curtea de Apel Galați – Secția contencios administrativ și fiscal (Court of Appeal, 
Galați – Division for Administrative and Tax Matters, Romania) of 30 June 2016 
which dismissed the appeal brought by that party seeking an order requiring the 
Ministerul Agriculturii și Dezvoltării Rurale (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural 
Development) (i) to adopt an administrative act containing a substantive analysis 
of the fulfilment of the criteria laid down by EU legislation as regards the 
derogations provided for by the Member States concerning the compulsory 
classification of animal carcasses on the recommendation of the European 
Community and (ii) to exempt SC Dinamel Trade SRL from carrying out those 
compulsory classification operations. 
EN 
SUMMARY OF THE REQUEST FOR A PRELIMINARY RULING – CASE C-84/23 
 
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Subject matter and legal basis of the request for a preliminary ruling 
Interpretation of Article 2(1)(a) and (b) of Delegated Regulation 2017/1182 
pursuant to the third paragraph of Article 267 of the Treaty on the Functioning of 
the European Union 
Question referred for a preliminary ruling 
Are Article 2(1) of [Ordonanța Guvernului nr. 4/2019 (Government Order 
No 4/2019)], Article 3(1) and Article 5 of [Hotărârea Guvernului nr. 842/2021 
(Government Decision No 842/2021)], which govern the national system for the 
classification of carcasses and which provide that classification is compulsory 
irrespective of the number of animals slaughtered, as well as Article 1 of the 
technical standards approved by [Ordinul nr. 86/2022 (Order No 86/2022)] and 
Article 1 of the technical standards approved by [Ordinul nr. 347/2021 (Order 
No 347/2021)], contrary to Article 2(1)(a) and (b) of [Delegated] Regulation (EU) 
2017/1182, which deems it appropriate and necessary to abolish the compulsory 
classification of carcasses for small scale slaughterhouses which slaughter less 
than 150 bovine animals per week as an annual average and less than 500 pigs per 
week as an annual average, using the expression: ‘Member States may decide that 
the requirements on classification shall not be compulsory for slaughterhouses 
which slaughter a limited number of bovine animals and pigs’? 
Provisions of European Union law relied on 
Recital 3 and Articles 1 and 2 of Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 
2017/1182 of 20 April 2017 supplementing Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013 of the 
European Parliament and of the Council as regards the Union scales for the 
classification of beef, pig and sheep carcasses and as regards the reporting of 
market prices of certain categories of carcasses and live animals 
Provisions of national law relied on 
Article 2 of Ordonanța Guvernului nr. 4/2019 privind reorganizarea sistemului 
național de clasificare a carcaselor de bovine, porcine și ovine, precum și 
monitorizarea, controlul și raportarea prețurilor de piață ale carcaselor și ale 
animalelor vii (Government Order No 4/2019 on the reorganisation of the national 
system for the classification of beef, pig and sheep carcasses, and on the 
monitoring, control and reporting of market prices of carcasses and live animals) 
(‘Government Order No 4/2019’) 
Articles 3 and 5 of Hotărârea Guvernului nr. 842/2021 privind modul de 
organizare și funcționare a Sistemului național de clasificare a carcaselor de 
bovine, porcine și ovine (Government Decision No 842/2021 laying down 
detailed rules for the organisation and functioning of the national system for the 
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classification of beef, pig and sheep carcasses) (‘Government Decision 
No 842/2021’) 
Ordinul ministrului agriculturii și dezvoltării rurale nr. 86/2022 din 13 aprilie 
2022 pentru aprobarea Normelor tehnice de clasificare a carcaselor, de înregistrare 
și raportare a prețurilor de piață ale carcaselor și ale animalelor vii, pentru specia 
bovine (Order No 86/2022 of the Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development 
of 13 April 2022 approving technical standards for the classification of carcasses 
and for the registration and reporting of market prices of carcasses and live 
animals of the bovine species) (‘Order No 86/2022’) 
and Ordinul ministrului agriculturii și dezvoltării rurale nr. 347/2021 din 14 
decembrie 2021 pentru aprobarea Normelor tehnice de clasificare a carcaselor, de 
înregistrare și raportare a prețurilor de piață ale carcaselor și ale animalelor vii, 
pentru specia porcine (Order No 347/2021 of the Minister for Agriculture and 
Rural Development of 14 December 2021 approving technical standards for the 
classification of carcasses and for the registration and reporting of market prices 
of carcasses and live animals of the porcine species) (‘Order No 347/2021’) 
Succinct presentation of the facts and procedure in the main proceedings 
1 In 2013, the applicant for revision, SC Dinamel Trade SRL, brought an action 
before the Tribunalul Brăila (Regional Court, Brăila, Romania) against the 
defendants Ministerul Agriculturii și Dezvoltării Rurale (MADR) – Direcția 
pentru Agricultură a Județului Brăila – Serviciul de Inspecții Tehnice și Control, 
Clasificare Carcase Porcine, Bovine și Ovine – Zona IV (Ministry of Agriculture 
and Rural Development – Directorate for Agriculture, Brăila County – 
Department for technical inspection and control and for the classification of pig, 
beef and sheep carcasses – Zone IV) and Comisia de Clasificare a Carcaselor 
București (Carcass Classification Committee, Bucharest), requesting that that 
court deliver a judicial decision whereby the MADR would be required (i) to 
adopt an administrative act containing a substantive analysis of the fulfilment of 
the criteria laid down by EU legislation as regards the derogations provided for by 
the Member States concerning the compulsory classification of animal carcasses 
and (ii) to exempt SC Dinamel Trade SRL from carrying out those compulsory 
classification operations. 
2 The Tribunalul Brăila (Regional Court, Brăila) dismissed the action brought by 
SC Dinamel Trade SRL against the Comisia de Clasificare a Carcaselor București 
(Carcass Classification Committee, Bucharest) as unfounded and the action 
brought by that party against the MADR – Direcția pentru Agricultură [a 
Județului] Brăila (Directorate for Agriculture, Brăila County) on the basis that 
legal proceedings could not be brought against the latter. The appeal brought by 
SC Dinamel Trade SRL against that judgment was allowed and the re-
examination of the case by the Curtea de Apel Galați (Court of Appeal, Galați, 
Romania) resulted in the judgment of 30 June 2016 in which that court dismissed 
SUMMARY OF THE REQUEST FOR A PRELIMINARY RULING – CASE C-84/23 
 
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as unfounded the action, as amended, brought against the MADR by SC Dinamel 
Trade SRL. 
3 The appeal brought by the latter against the judgment of 30 June 2016 was 
dismissed by decision of the Înalta Curte de Casație și Justiție – Secția contencios 
administrativ și fiscal (High Court of Cassation and Justice – Division for 
Administrative and Tax Matters, Romania) of 4 February 2020. SC Dinamel 
Trade SRL lodged an application for revision in respect of that decision, seeking 
the setting aside of that decision and the issuing of a decision in accordance with 
provisions of EU law, in particular Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 
2017/1182 of 20 April 2017 – in force since 11 July 2018 – supplementing 
Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013 on the classification of beef, pig and sheep 
carcasses; a regulation which the appeal court did not examine in so far as it did 
not exist at the time of delivery of the judgment which was the subject of the 
appeal. 
4 By Decision No 4340/2021, the Înalta Curte de Casație și Justiție – Secția 
contencios administrativ și fiscal (High Court of Cassation and Justice – Division 
for Administrative and Tax Matters) granted the application for revision, set aside 
the decision of 4 February 2020, and prescribed a time limit for ruling on the 
proceedings. 
The essential arguments of the parties in the main proceedings 
5 The applicant for revision, SC Dinamel Trade SRL, has requested that the matter 
be referred to the Court of Justice of the European Union, claiming, in support of 
that request, that, although several legislative acts have been adopted at national 
level (Government Order No 4/2019, Government Decision No 842/2021, Order 
No 86/2022, and Order No 347/2021), none of them provide for derogations for 
establishments which carry out a small volume of activity, since classification is 
compulsory irrespective of the number of animals slaughtered per week, in a 
situation where, as is stated in the preamble to [Delegated] Regulation 2017/1182, 
although it is not an obligation for EU Member States, they should have the 
possibility to grant derogations from the general obligation to classify carcasses to 
small scale establishments ‘in order to reduce administrative burden’. 
6 The applicant for revision has stated that it seeks to obtain the issuing of a 
decision in accordance with the provisions of Delegated Regulation 2017/1182, 
that is to say, an analysis of whether or not the MADR’s refusal to apply 
derogations from the compulsory classification of beef and pig carcasses was 
justified, with the result that it was exempt from entering into classification 
contracts. 
7 The MADR has submitted written observations regarding the request for the 
matter to be referred to the Court of Justice of the European Union, in which it has 
argued that the request should be dismissed as inadmissible, taking the view that 
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the conditions laid down in Article 267 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the 
European Union are not satisfied. 
8 In essence, it has argued that the applicant for revision seeks to obtain clarification 
of a question relating to the legality of national legislative acts in the light of the 
provisions of Delegated Regulation 2017/1182 and not clarification of certain 
aspects relating to the interpretation of that regulation. 
Succinct presentation of the reasoning in the request for a preliminary ruling 
9 The Înalta Curte de Casație și Justiție – Secția contencios administrativ și fiscal 
(High Court of Cassation and Justice – Division for Administrative and Tax 
Matters) states that the provisions of the third paragraph of Article 267 TFEU are 
applicable in the present case and that there is an obligation to refer the matter to 
the Court of Justice of the European Union. 
10 The referring court starts from the premiss that it is not in dispute that the 
European legislation has left to the discretion of each Member State the decision 
as whether or not it will, by means of national legislation, grant derogations from 
the compulsory classification of carcasses. 
11 The legal basis of the present proceedings is the principle of the primacy of 
Community law enshrined in Article 148(2) of the Romanian Constitution, in the 
sense that the question arises as to whether, in the exercise of the discretionary 
power to grant derogations from the compulsory classification of carcasses, by 
making use of the possibility of not granting any derogation, essentially not taking 
into account any analysis in the sense set out in Delegated Regulation 2017/1182, 
the national legislation is incompatible with the principles of the Community 
legislation. 
12 SC Dinamel Trade SRL asked the MADR to assess the appropriateness of 
granting derogations from compulsory classification and submitted for judicial 
review the allegedly unjustified refusal to grant derogations under Delegated 
Regulation 2017/1182, in the analysis of whether the defendant authority had 
exceeded its discretionary power. 
13 Although Delegated Regulation 2017/1182 supplementing Regulation (EU) 
No 1308/2013 does not yet provide for the compulsory granting of derogations 
from compulsory classification, it provides for some elements of analysis 
(different to the previous ones) as to the appropriateness of granting such 
derogations for slaughterhouses which slaughter per week, as an annual average, 
less than 150 bovine animals aged eight months or more, or less than 500 pigs. 
14 The primacy of EU law in the exercise of the review of the lawfulness of an 
allegedly unjustified refusal by the national authority to grant derogations in 
accordance with those regulations, in the analysis of whether discretionary power 
has been exceeded through a failure to take into account the appropriateness of 
SUMMARY OF THE REQUEST FOR A PRELIMINARY RULING – CASE C-84/23 
 
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granting derogations, must also be made with reference to the new elements 
provided by EU legislation, as is apparent from the preamble to [Delegated] 
Regulation 2017/1182. 
15 In those circumstances, the issue is the compatibility of the national provisions, 
which maintain the compulsory classification of carcasses without derogations, 
with the provisions of Delegated Regulation 2017/1182, that is to say, whether the 
manner in which the national authorities exercise their discretionary power is 
consistent with EU legislation, in the sense of whether that legislation precludes a 
discretionary approach on the part of a national authority such as that at issue in 
the main proceedings.