III —

Secondly, monetary compensatory amounts are charged or granted under Article 1 (3) of the basic regulation only where the monetary situation would lead to serious disturbances in trade in agricultural products. According to the Commission the risk of such disturbances, already previously recognized in the case of fresh meat of bovine animals, existed also in the case of meat of bovine animals simply seasoned, in particular, by the addition of a minimum quantity of salt and pepper. Indeed, on the one hand, this product is subject to the common organization of the market in beef and veal; its price accordingly depends on that of products subject to intervention. On the other hand the Commission maintains that in December 1976 a risk of disturbance was indicated by the abnormal increase in imports of seasoned meat into the Federal Republic of Germany especially from the United Kingdom and Ireland during the last month of 1976. In this respect it relies on the statistics of imports into Germany for the whole of 1976 of products mentioned under the tariff subheading in question. In fact it emerges from the table which it furnished that imports of these products as a whole showed a substantial increase especially from September onwards. This applies to imports from France which rose from an average of 200 to 300 tonnes in the early months of the year under consideration to over 600 tonnes from September and reached 864 tonnes during December. The case of Italy is less significant; for this State exports of the products in question to the Federal Republic of Germany remained at an average of between 300 and 400 tonnes from March to November though they reached nearly 500 tonnes in December. It is in fact imports from the United Kingdom and Ireland which show proportionately the most substantial increase, since from a few tonnes from January to September they rose to 1167 tonnes in December in the case of the United Kingdom and to 2705 tonnes in the same month in the case of Ireland. This statistical table does not however of itself provide full evidence . of an abnormal increase of imports of beef and veal simply seasoned. First, because it relates to the entirety of the products falling within subheading 16.02 B III (b) 1 and within this subheading there is no subdivision which enables the respective proportions of this seasoned meat and of other prepared or preserved bovine meat to be ascertained. Secondly, because the data on which the Commission especially relies, those for December 1976, of necessity could not have been known at the time of the adoption of Regulation No 3092/76 on 17 December. These then are the reasons why the Judge-Rapporteur asked the Commission to supply the Court with more precise details covering bovine meat simply seasoned and also to furnish statistics of imports of this product into the Federal Republic of Germany after20 December 1976, the date on which the monetary compensatory amounts were charged and also the figures relating to the first two months of 1977. On 16 November last the Commission gave at least a partial reply to these questions but these pieces of information, based on the reports of checks by the German customs authorities, seem to me apt to elucidate the facts of the matter. Although it was not in fact possible to provide the breakdown requested for imports for the period from 1 to 19 December 1976 on the one hand and for the period 20 December to the end of that month on the other, because commercial operators generally make customs declarations monthly, it is evident from the table furnished, relating exclusively to imports into the Federal Republic of Germany of seasoned meat from certain other Member States for the months of October 1976 to January 1977 inclusive, that during the last three months of 1976 there was an unusual rise, at once very rapid and very large, in these imports especially from Ireland and the United Kingdom. As regards Ireland the tonnage of imports of this product which was only 335 tonnes in October rose to 1077 tonnes in November and 1899 tonnes in December. For the United Kingdom the rise was less substantial: 321 tonnes in November and 496 tonnes in December. As against this, for January 1977, that is to say after the entry into force of Regulation No 3092/76, a very sharp decrease in these imports is to be observed: 337 tonnes from Ireland and none from the United Kingdom. To my mind there is no doubt that this situation was brought about by the monetary compensatory amounts being put into effect. The plaintiff in the main action contests these statistical data which it considers to be factually incorrect. The basis of its argument is in essence that the same reports of checks on importation drawn up by the customs authorities are addressed both to the Federal Statistical Office and to the Federal Office for the organization of the agricultural markets. There can thus be no variations in the information received by these two bodies. Second, Spitta points to a flagrant contradiction between the overall statistics on imports from Ireland covering the entirety of the products falling within tariff subheading 16.02 B III (b) 1 for November 1976, that is to say, 916 tonnes, and the figures shown by the Commission in its recent statement, that is to say, 1077 tonnes for seasoned meat alone which constitutes only part of this subheading. In all, it doubts whether the Commission could have,, had before it statistics specifically applicable to meat simply seasoned because the figures emanating from both the Federal Statistical Office and the Office for the organization of the agricultural markets relate only to the entirety of the products falling within the above-mentioned tariff subheading. Nevertheless the plaintiff in the main action admits, contrary it seems to me to its claims, that ‘the tendency which the Commission does not cease to make use of’, that is to say the substantial rise in imports of seasoned meat into the Federal Republic, was ‘already evident in November 1976’ and that it would therefore have been appropriate at that time to adopt a measure containing a transitional time-limit for the benefit of short-term contracts. So, in spite of Spina's arguments to the contrary, I am in favour of the Commission's arguments and of accepting that a not inconsiderable disturbance in intra-Community trade in the product in question was sparked off especially from November 1976. I do not think therefore that the Commission has relied on substantially incorrect facts or that it has gone beyond the bounds of the wide discretion which it has in this sphere.