OPINION OF MR ADVOCATE GENERAL LENZ

delivered on 13 December 1984 ( *1 )

Mr President,

Members of the Court,

With your leave, I should like to present my opinion on these cases immediately after the oral argument.

The question put to the Court is clear; the national court would like to know how the tonnage of fishing vessels is to be calculated for the purposes of Article 14 (3) of Council Regulation No 171/83.

In my view, the cases before the national court are not likely to set a precedent. First, the facts of these cases concern the application of the regulation in one Member State. They do not involve more than one Member State and this aspect has not therefore been elucidated from various angles. Only the Commission and the Netherlands Government have submitted observations, so that I think that in case different rules for calculating the tonnage exist in the Member States, we should not at this stage decide the question of the application of the relevant regulation because this point does not seem to have been argued by sufficient parties.

In essence we have two concurring views, that of the Netherlands Government and that of the Commission; both proceed on the assumption that no specific methods of calculation are prescribed by

Community law and that therefore the only course open to the national court is to apply the methods of calculation prescribed by its own national law.

We have been told that this has been the practice for ten years and that it has not caused any problems. Naturally, whenever such limits are introduced, there are always some people who complain because they are just above or just below the limit. However, I doubt whether these cases are typical in that regard since in both of them the limit was exceeded by a wide margin and it is apparent that there have been scarcely any cases involving more than one Member State. The reason for this is that the 70 grt rule applies to vessels fishing within the 12-miíe coastal zone, which is normally fished only by fishermen from the State to which those waters belong. Furthermore, it has not been shown that the different methods of calculation which may be applied in the Member States have any practical significance, and even if they did, they are not important because in such cases the tonnage of the defendant's vessel is usually taken from the tonnage certificate issued in its home country and if that certificate shows that its tonnage is not more than 70 tons, that is the end of the matter.

I therefore propose that the answer suggested in the Commission's written observations should be adopted and that the question referred to the Court should be answered as follows :

For the purposes of Article 14 (3) of Council Regulation (EEC) No 171/83, a vessel's tonnage expressed in gross registered tons must be determined in accordance with the tonnage measurement rules in force in the Member State concerned.

In case the Court also wishes to answer the question regarding the position if a ship from another Member State is involved — which I do not advocate — then I would suggest the addition of the following answer:

If a vessel from another Member State is involved, its tonnage shall be determined by reference to the tonnage certificate issued in that State.

( *1 ) Translated from the German.