Keywords

Summary



Keywords

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1. Actions for annulment of measures ° Natural or legal persons ° Measures of direct and individual concern to them ° Regulation providing for early alignment of sugar prices applicable in Spain with common prices

(EC Treaty, Art. 173, fourth para., and Art. 189; Council Regulation No 3814/92)

2. Non-contractual liability ° Conditions ° Legislative measure involving choices of economic policy ° Sufficiently serious breach of a superior rule of law for the protection of individuals

(EC Treaty, Art. 215, second para.)

3. Non-contractual liability ° Conditions ° Legislative measure involving choices of economic policy ° Sufficiently serious breach of a superior rule of law for the protection of individuals ° Early alignment of sugar prices applicable in Spain with common prices ° No compensation for producers of isoglucose ° Principles of the protection of legitimate expectations and non-discrimination ° Breach ° None ° Liability not incurred

(EC Treaty, Art. 40(3), second subpara., and Art. 215, second para.; 1985 Act of Accession, Art. 70(3); Council Regulation No 3814/92)

Summary

1. An action brought by Spanish producers of isoglucose for the annulment of Regulation No 3814/92, which provides for the early alignment of the sugar prices applicable in Spain with the common prices and for the granting of aid to beet and sugar-cane growers and to sugar producers for sugar in stock, and authorizes Spain to grant adjustment aid to sugar-producing undertakings, is inadmissible.

In the first place, that regulation introduces measures of general application which apply to objectively determined situations and produce legal effects vis-à-vis a category of traders envisaged in a general and abstract manner, namely producers within the sugar sector, and, even assuming, although it does not mention them, that the regulation affects Spanish producers of isoglucose operating at the time of its adoption, they would be affected only in their objective capacity as isoglucose producers in the same way as any other trader in the sugar sector who, actually or potentially, is in an identical situation.

Second, the allegedly disadvantageous competitive position pleaded by the applicants, arising from the fact that, unlike Spanish sugar producers, they did not receive compensation following the early price alignment carried out by the regulation, cannot be regarded as constituting specific circumstances justifying their right to bring an action, since the Community legislature has made a choice of economic policy in the light of the specific position of sugar producers, which differs from that of the applicants.

Finally, the fact that a measure which applies objectively may have different specific effects on different categories of traders is not inconsistent with its nature as a regulation.

2. The Community can incur non-contractual liability for damage caused by legislative measures adopted by its institutions only where there has been a sufficiently serious breach of a superior rule of law protecting individuals. In a legislative field characterized by the exercise of a wide discretion, such as that required for the implementation of the Common Agricultural Policy, the Community can incur liability only if the institution concerned has manifestly and gravely disregarded the limits on the exercise of its powers.

3. Regulation No 3814/92, which provides for early alignment of the sugar prices applicable in Spain with the common prices, grants aid to beet and sugar-cane growers and to sugar producers for sugar in stock, and authorizes Spain to grant adjustment aid to sugar-producing undertakings, does not render the Community liable to Spanish producers of isoglucose, in respect of whom the adoption of the regulation constituted neither a breach of the principle of the protection of legitimate expectations nor a breach of the principle of non-discrimination laid down in the second subparagraph of Article 40(3) of the Treaty.

In the first place, it follows from an interpretation of Article 70(3)(a) and (b) of the Act of Accession of Spain that the applicants could not, under that Act, have had a legitimate expectation that price alignment between Spanish prices and the common prices within the sugar sector would extend over a period going beyond the entry into force of the contested regulation. Regulation No 1716/91, providing for alignment of prices in two stages up to 1995, also could not have given rise to a legitimate expectation on the part of those producers, in view of, with regard to the first stage, the objective of achieving the single market on 1 January 1993, responsibility for which was conferred on the Community legislature by the Single European Act, which was such as to cause a prudent and well-informed trader to foresee an accelerated alignment of prices, and, with regard to the second stage, the fact that it follows from Article 7 of that regulation that the conditions of alignment for this latter period were not laid down at the time of its adoption, since the establishment of those conditions was envisaged for a later date.

In the second place, the fact that the regulation does not provide for transitional measures in favour of Spanish producers of isoglucose designed to allow them to cope with the situation created by the early alignment of prices, whereas it does provide for such measures for sugar producers, particularly in the form of aid, does not constitute discrimination against the former, since isoglucose producers and sugar producers are in objectively different situations, particularly with regard to the conditions governing supply of raw materials and production.