3.

I cannot endorse that argument. To begin with, I would recall that, according to Article 2 (2) of Regulation No 2771/75 on the common organization of the market in eggs, the Council had undertaken to adopt ‘marketing standards’ for eggs, relating to ‘grading by quality and weight, packaging, storage, transport, presentation and marking’. The Council's intention was that those standards should ‘contribute to an improvement in the quality of the eggs and consequently facilitate their sale’ in the interest of producers, traders and consumers. The Community legislature honoured that undertaking by adopting Regulation No 2772/75 which divides eggs into three commercial categories in decreasing order of quality: Grade A, ‘fresh eggs’; Grade B, ‘second-quality or preserved eggs’; and Grade C, ‘non-graded eggs intended for the food industry’ (Article 6 and fourth and eighth recitals in the preamble to the regulation). Each grade is distinguished by a mark stamped on the eggs or the packs, or both, with any further indications concerning the weight, date of packaging and the distinctive markings of the undertaking. Any other markings are prohibited (Articles 15 and 21) on the ground that they might ‘affect trading conditions in the Community’ (15th recital in the preamble) and, in my view, confuse consumers. Supervision to ensure compliance with such provisions and the adoption of measures aimed at penalizing infringements are entrusted to the authorities of the Member States (Articles 26 and 29). Finally, Article 30 provides that all national measures ‘aimed at ensuring uniform application of this regulation shall be adopted in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 17 of Regulation (EEC) No 2771/75’, which entails close cooperation between the Member States and the Commission through a joint management committee set up for the purpose. That being so it is clear that, pursuant to Article 2 (2) of Regulation No 2771/75 and after the adoption of Regulation No 2772/75, the Member States could no longer unilaterally enact provisions concerning the sale of eggs; otherwise they might jeopardize the results achieved by Regulation No 2772/75 and, more generally, impair progress under the Community rules towards bringing about a uniform improvement in the quality and marketing of eggs within the common market. The objection raised by the Netherlands Government that the purpose of the 1978 Order is to promote not the marketing of eggs but the conditions in which chickens are kept is tantamount to contradicting the expressed intentions of the legislature. In formulating the question referred to the Court of Justice, the national court emphasized that the new ‘rules laid down regarding the production and marking of deep-litter eggs’ were laid down precisely ‘in order to promote sales’ (see the preamble to the aforesaid Order). Nor can it be said that the Council itself retroactively endorsed the contested body of rules by incorporating certain features thereof in the amendments made to Regulation No 2772/75. As the Commission points out, it was possible to make those amendments only after the terms indicating the type of farming and the origin of eggs had been harmonized under the Community procedure to which I have just referred. It was necessary to prevent the use of designations of that kind, which were hitherto little known and difficult to supervise, if they were ‘likely to mislead the purchaser’ and to be harmful to ‘the fluidity of the Community market’ (Article 21, as amended by Regulation (EEC) No 1831/84 of 19 June 1984, Official Journal 1984, L 172, p. 2). For the same reasons Regulation (EEC) No 1943/85 (Official Journal 1985, L 181, p. 34) now restricts the possibility of applying the description ‘deep-litter eggs’ to Grade A eggs alone, that is to say eggs designated by a term with which Community consumers are by now familiar. Those findings confirm that the enactment by the Netherlands legislature of provisions concerning the quality and marketing of deep-litter eggs constituted an encroachment on the Community's exclusive powers in that area. The description used and the inspection mark were therefore incompatible with the provisions of Regulation No 2772/75.