3.

The two arguments should be dismissed. The applicant, as we have seen, maintains that between 30 June 1981 and 30 June 1982 it had the right to accumulate, at least up to a certain ceiling, stocks of products of category la, which it was entitled to use subsequently to cover deliveries of such products effected in excess of the Community limits. I would observe that if that argument were justified, Finsider should have contested the legality of the delivery quotas laid down for it in respect of the second quarter of 1983. But it did not do so and, since the decision by which the Commission notified it of those limits has been definitive for some time, it cannot do so now by asking for a fine to be annulled (see the Court's judgment of 10 December 1986 in Case 41/85 Sideradriav Commission [1986] ECR 3917, paragraph 10). In any case, I am convinced that on the date at which general decision No 1831/81 was issued steel companies could not have stocks of products of category la nor could they build new stocks of such products. I pointed out in Section 1 above that before that date — that is to say 1 July 1981—there was only one category I which was subject to the quota system and it included, inter alia, strip. When the relevant products were released from the quota system, strip ‘sold or exported’ (category la), and steel products falling into groups lb, Ic and Id were subjected to quotas instead. As the Commission has explained, the resultant reform gave rise to a problem with regard to the transitional system, since on 1 July 1981 the undertakings might have in their stores stocks of strip belonging to the former category I which had been manufactured in compliance with the production quotas laid down by the previous rules. However, if after that date that strip had been marketed as products of the new category la, the manufacturer would have had to comply with the limits laid down for delivery quotas as a result of the rule by which production and sale are treated as being equivalent. In other words, strip manufactured as a product of category I but sold or exported after 1 July 1981 as a steel product of category la would have ‘paid’ twice. In order to get round this difficulty the Commission allowed undertakings at that time to absorb the excesses with regard to delivery quotas of category la products into stocks of old category I strip which were in store on 30 June 1981. As regards products falling within categories lb, Ic and Id, to which the rule ‘production = delivery’ does not apply, the supervisory body merely refrained from subjecting steel products manufactured before the reform to the relevant delivery restrictions (as regards that practice, which has already been applied in the past, see the order of 16 December 1980 in Case 258/80 R Rumi v Commission [1980] ECR 3867, paragraph 16). In the final analysis it appears from the picture which we have traced above that (a) there could not have been stocks of category la products on 30 June 1981 since that category had only just been created; and (b) as from 1 July 1981 it became unlawful to constitute such stocks owing to the rule ‘production = delivery’. Hence this explains the reason for which the Commission never took account of such stocks. Furthermore, since the continuing existence on 30 June 1982 of stocks of strip produced before July 1981 is precluded, it is obvious that the reporting requirement laid down in Article 2 of Decision No 1696/82 could not refer to strip of category la. As a result, to claim that that provision was infringed is baseless. Finsider's charge that the Commission was guilty of discriminatory treatment is likewise unfounded. In that connection I would point out that the requirement to report the stock position as at 30 June 1982 was laid down in order to enable more effective supervision of compliance with production quotas and certainly not to justify possible overshooting of delivery quotas (see third recital in the preamble to Decision No 1696/82). Consequently, Article 2 did not give undertakings the right to utilize stocks which had been built up in the course of the year 1981-82; nor is it conceivable that the Commission should have tolerated such conduct. As I have already said, strip of category la differs from other strip in so far as it can be legally identified only at the time when it leaves the steel mill, and hence it is not possible to constitute stocks of such products. In view of that distinction — which, I repeat, the legislature incorporated ‘to ensure the complete effectiveness of the [new quota] system’ — the Commission could not enable unlawfully constituted or maintained stocks to be used without jeopardizing the whole reform. In those circumstances the decision to penalize Finsider for exceeding quotas cannot be regarded as discriminatory.