61977C0123
OPINION OF MR ADVOCATE GENERAL WARNER
DELIVERED ON 28 FEBRUARY 1978
My Lords,
In this case, I am so wholly in agreement with the reasoning or the Council that I am content to adopt it as my own. I refer in particular to the analysis contained in the Council's written observations — at pp. 9 to 20 — of the authorities in this Court on the effect of the second paragraph of Article 173 of the Treaty.
Council Regulation (EEC) No 1692/77 — the Regulation of which the Applicants seek to impugn the validity — would have affected anyone who wished to import into Italy from Japan at any time between 29 July 1977 (the date of its entry into force) and 31 December 1977 (the date of its expiry) motor-cycles having a cylinder capacity of 380 cc or more. The fact, if it be a fact, that no-one other than the Applicants was likely to wish to do so, is not enough to justify a finding that that act, ‘although in the form of a regulation’ was in truth ‘a decision … of direct and individual concern’ to the Applicants. Nor is the fact, if it be a fact, that no-one other than the Applicants had, at the time when the Regulation entered into force, put in, under the Italian exchange control legislatori, for permission to do so.
Accordingly I am of the opinion that this action should be dismissed as inadmissible and that the Applicants should be ordered to pay the costs.