Keywords

Summary



Keywords

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1 . ECSC - Production - System of production and delivery quotas for steel - Establishment and essential elements of the system - Council' s assent needed - Adjustment of quotas of undertakings suffering the effects of restrictions of export markets - Commission' s own powers

( ECSC Treaty, Art . 58 )

2 . ECSC - Production - System of production and delivery quotas for steel - Adoption of provisions permitting the determination of quotas on an equitable basis - Application by the Commission of the procedure laid down for the introduction of quotas - Misuse of powers

( ECSC Treaty, Arts 33 and 58; Decision No 3485/85/ECSC, Art . 5 )

Summary

1 . Article 58 of the ECSC Treaty must be interpreted as providing that the Council' s assent is not necessary for the establishment and the essential elements of the quota system and that it is for the Commission, acting under its own powers, to lay down the details of the system in order to determine the quotas on an equitable basis .

It follows that, whilst the Council' s assent is necessary in the case of a proposal for a general adjustment of quotas for an entire group of undertakings characterized by their structure and thus by a situation which is permanent, that is not the case with a proposal for the adjustment of quotas allocated to undertakings according to the ratio between their exports and their deliveries on the common market during a certain period before the introduction of the quota system . Since it was foreseeable, once the system had been introduced, that a particularly unfavourable development on the export market might require an adjustment of that ratio in order to enable the Commission to comply with its obligation to determine the quotas on an equitable basis, such an adjustment must be considered as forming part of the details of the system for which the Council' s assent is not necessary .

2 . The powers conferred on the Commission by the ECSC Treaty would be diverted from their lawful purpose if it appeared that the Commission had made use of them for the exclusive, or at any rate, the main purpose of evading a procedure specifically prescribed by the Treaty for dealing with the circumstances with which it is required to cope . The same is true if the Commission wrongly uses the procedure laid down for the establishment of the quota system and thereby fails to exercise its own powers to adopt the rules which it considers necessary to ensure that the quotas are equitable .

That is the case where, having examined the specific situation of several undertakings and concluded that the ratios between the production quotas of those undertakings and the proportion of those quotas which may be delivered on the common market should be adjusted in order to determine the quotas on an equitable basis, the Commission does not adopt, on the basis of Article 58 ( 2 ), the provisions required by that finding but merely submits to the Council a proposal in accordance with Article 58 ( 1 ) and, having failed to obtain the Council' s assent, adopts a new general decision which maintains the quota system unchanged .

Article 5 of Commission Decision No 3485/85/ECSC therefore represents a misuse of power and must therefore be declared void in so far as it does not enable delivery quotas to be fixed on a basis which the Commission considers fair for undertakings having ratios between their delivery quotas and production quotas which are significantly lower than the Community average .