Keywords

Summary



Keywords

++++

Agriculture ° Common organization of the markets ° Milk and milk products ° Additional levy on milk ° Allocation of reference quantities exempt from the levy ° Producers who had suspended deliveries under the system of premiums for non-marketing or conversion ° Grant of a special reference quantity ° Calculation on the basis of the quantity taken into account in granting the premium ° Application of reductions comparable to those applying to other producers ° Aggregation of the basic reduction introduced by Regulation No 775/87 and the percentage representative of the abatements applicable to other producers in the same Member State ° Principle of the protection of legitimate expectations ° Principle of non-discrimination ° Infringement ° None

(Council Regulation No 857/84, Art. 2(2) and 3a(2), as amended by Regulation No 1639/91)

Summary

Article 3a(2) of Regulation No 857/84, as amended by Regulation No 1639/91, must be interpreted as meaning that, in calculating the reference quantities exempt from the additional levy on milk to be allocated to producers who had suspended deliveries under the system of premiums for non-marketing or conversion introduced by Regulation No 1078/77, it is necessary to subtract from the basic quantity reflecting the level of production before the period of non-marketing a percentage which is the total of the percentage representative of all the abatements applied to the reference quantities in the Member State in question and the percentage corresponding to the basic reduction applied to all producers in the Community in respect of the temporary withdrawal of a proportion of the reference quantities introduced by Regulation No 775/87.

That method of calculation does not conflict with either the principle of the protection of legitimate expectations or the principle of non-discrimination, since producers resuming production at the expiry of their undertaking, although they must not be subject to restrictions which specifically affect them by reason of that undertaking, cannot claim to be put in a more favourable position than producers who did not suspend their production.

Although certain producers resuming production may be placed at a disadvantage because the percentage representative of the abatements applied to them was calculated on the basis of production which, in the Member State concerned, was higher overall than that of the year taken into account in their case, that does not call in question the validity of Article 3a(2), cited above, since the Community legislature could only, unless it based itself on purely hypothetical assessments of the trend in production of the parties concerned had there been no interruption, assimilate their situation in so far as concerns the abatements to that of producers who had continued to produce, irrespective of whether the latter had contributed to any increase.

It is also because the trend in production of the parties concerned had there been no undertaking is hypothetical that, in their case, and without constituting a prohibited discrimination, the rates of abatement can in practice be varied as permitted by Article 2(2) of Regulation No 857/84 only in so far as they are allocated on the basis of an objective criterion, namely the size of the holding.