3.

All that now remains, in order to resolve the doubts expressed by the national court, is to examine the rules referred to in the order of 27 July 1966 in the light of that criterion. With regard to the first rule, the obligation to provide a declaration of the area cultivated, Cerafel states that the collection of production data enables it to carry out research intended to improve the quality of vegetables and their sales, and that the results of those studies may also be used by producers who are not members. In other words, the application of that provision to all producers entails benefits for the entire fruit and vegetable sector in the region; it cannot therefore be considered contrary to the common organization of the market, which, as we know, pursues identical objectives (see paragraph 1 (a) of the operative part of the judgment in Case 222/82, cited above). Let us go on to the provisions regarding the grading, weight and size of products. In this regard I should point out that once a common organization of the market has been established, ‘Member States are under an obligation to refrain from taking any measure which might undermine or create exceptions to it’ (judgment of 29 November 1978 in Case 83/78 Pigs Marketing Board v Redmond [1978] ECR 2347); in this case, the Community legislature has laid down specific quality standards for cauliflower and artichokes (Annex II to Regulation No 23 of 4 April 1962, Official Journal, English Special Edition 1959-62, p. 97, and Annex I to Regulation No 58 of 15 June 1962, Official Journal, English Special Edition 1959-62, p. 204), and by so doing has established a system which the Court has held to be exhaustive in nature (see paragraph 1 (c) of the operative part of the judgment in Case 222/82). It is possible that the rules issued by the committee will diverge from that system; the decision of the national authorities malting those rules applicable erga omnes is therefore liable to create exceptions to that system and is thus contrary to the obligation referred to above. Next comes the producer's obligation to sell his whole crop at public auctions approved by Cerafel and to contribute to the ‘withdrawal-price’ system. The first obligation, we are told, is intended to protect member producers from disturbances of the market for fruit and vegetables in Brittany, which is almost wholly dominated by wholesalers and shippers. The second, on the other hand, is intended to prevent market prices from falling below a certain limit (that is to say, the withdrawal price), below which it is more advantageous from an economic point of view to withdraw the produce from sale and pay the producers an indemnity for the unsold goods. The extension to all producers of such obligations stabilizes the market to an even greater degree, and allows Cerafel to control effectively not only all production in the region but also its marketing. Let me say right away that there can be no doubt as to the lawfulness of the objectives of those two provisions. Article 13 of the basic regulation provides that the establishment of a producers' organization implies for its members the obligation ‘to apply, with regard to.., marketing, rules which have been adopted [by it]’ and ‘to sell their total output... through the organization’. In order to stabilize prices, moreover, the Community legislature considered it desirable that such organizations should ‘intervene on the market, in particular by applying a withdrawal price below which their members' produce is withdrawn from the market’ (12th recital in the preamble to the basic regulation). The third subparagraph of Article 15 (1) of the regulation provides that ‘to finance these withdrawal measures, producers' organizations shall establish an intervention fund, maintained by contributions assessed on quantitites offered for sale’. As is clear from their wording, however, those provisions are restricted in their scope: that is to say, they apply only to organizations and to their members. The general scheme of regulation applied by the legislature to the fruit and vegetables sector, on the other hand, is based on the principle of an open market: a market ‘to which every producer has free access and the functioning of which is regulated solely by the instruments provided for by [the common organization of the market]’ (paragraph 57 of the judgment in Case 83/78, referred to above). It follows, I think, that Cerafel's rules are compatible with that organization in so far as they remain applicable only to the persons by whom they are issued, whereas their extension to all producers would in practice amount to the replacement of the common system by this special scheme which the basic regulation does not prohibit — indeed, it is even encouraged — but which it wishes to restrict to members of the organization in question. In particular, the producer's obligation to sell his whole crop at auctions approved by Cerafel is unacceptable because it does not allow independent producers to buy and sell freely under conditions laid down by Community rules, and the application of the withdrawal price system to nonmembers is unlawful because it prevents them from‘taking advantage directly of intervention measures or any other measures for regulating the market laid down by the common organization’ (paragraph 58 of the judgment in Case 83/78, my emphasis). It should be recalled that alongside the system outlined above the basic regulation provides in Article 19 for a system of intervention applicable to all producers where the Commission finds that the market is in a state of ‘serious crisis’. If they were extended to all producers in Brittany, the Cerafel rules would in the end disrupt the operation of that double mechanism: as the Commission correctly points out, the system provided for in Article 19 would lose its entire raison d'être, and the market would be stabilized at a level higher than that provided for in the common organization. It is clear that in the absence of any Community regulations on the extension of the rules of producers' organizations such consequences must be considered incompatible with the functioning of the common organization of the market. Let me turn to the legality of the last obligation laid down by Cerafel: the payment of contributions for publicity campaigns initiated by Cerafel. It appears from the documents before the Court that a significant part of such sums is devoted to advertising and sales promotion, while the remainder covers Cerafel's administrative costs. It also appears that producers who are not members are obliged to pay one half of the contribution required of members. At this juncture I must once again cite the judgment of the Court in Case 222/82. In that case the Court held that ‘where a charge [in that case, a charge levied on growers by the Apple and Pear Development Council] which serves to finance a body some of whose activities are held to be contrary to Community law’, the provisions of Regulation No 1035/72 may ‘render unlawful the requirement for growers [to pay the charge]’; the Court went on to say. that ‘it is for the national court to decide whether, in the light of the importance of the activities in question, that fact renders the charge unlawful and must entail total or partial exemption’ (paragraph 3 (c) of the operative part). The same solution, mutatis mutandis, must apply in the case now before us.