Keywords

Summary



Keywords

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1 . Action for annulment - Natural or legal persons - Acts of direct and individual concern to them - Regulation fixing the percentage reduction of quantities for which applications for import licences have been made during a certain period

( EEC Treaty, Art . 173, second paragraph, and Art . 189, second paragraph; Commission Regulation No 2806/87 )

2 . Agriculture - Common organization of the markets - Beef and veal - High-quality fresh, chilled or frozen beef and veal - System of import licences - Applications for licences exceeding the quantity available - Application of a uniform percentage reduction - Introduction, for the purposes of dealing with current applications, of a quantitative ceiling on applications to be satisfied after reduction - Commission' s own powers - Breach of the principle of legal certainty - None

( Commission Regulation No 2377/80, as amended by Regulation No 3578/82, and No 2806/87, Art . 1, second paragraph )

Summary

1 . In the context of the management of a tariff quota, a regulation laying down the percentage up to which the competent authorities of the Member States are to satisfy applications for import licences lodged by traders concerns such traders directly . Since it is adopted in the light of the overall quantity in respect of which such applications were made during a specific period, the regulation decides on the treatment to be accorded to each application lodged, even if the institution adopting the regulation did not know the identity of the applicants, so that the regulation is of individual concern to each of them . Consequently, it is not an act of general application within the meaning of the second paragraph of Article 189 of the EEC Treaty but a bundle of individual decisions and an act against which an action for annulment may be brought by a trader concerned under the second paragraph of Article 173 .

2 . In view of the aim of the system of import licence applications giving access to the Community tariff quota for high-quality fresh, chilled or frozen beef and veal and of the reduction of applications where such applications exceed the available quota, as it is laid down by Regulation No 2377/80, amended by Regulation No 3578/82, namely to provide a guarantee of equal and continuing access by all interested operators within the Community to the said quota, the Commission was entitled to make it clear, in the second paragraph of Article 1 of Regulation No 2806/87, at a time when all the applications for import licences had already been lodged, that if an application for a certificate exceeded the available quantity it would be taken into account only up to the limit of that quantity . The purpose of an application exceeding the available quantity could not have been anything other than to distort the proportional reduction in all the quantities applied for that was subsequently made by the Commission and such a measure of good administration was necessary in order to avoid the undermining of the aims of the scheme and, being within the Commission' s own powers, could be adopted without consultation of the management committee . Since it was limited to making clear existing rules of which it was a necessary consequence, it could not contravene the principle of legal certainty .