Keywords

Summary



Keywords

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1.Action for compensation - Time limitation - Considered of Court' s own motion - Not permissible

( EEC Treaty, Art . 178 and second paragraph of Art . 215; Protocol on the Statute of the Court of Justice of the EEC, Art . 43 )

2.Action for compensation - Autonomous form of action - Exhaustion of all remedies under national law - Exception - Impossibility of obtaining reparation in national courts

( EEC Treaty, Art . 178 and second paragraph of Art . 215 )

3.Non-contractual liability - Damage - Damage for which compensation is available - Damage represented by the payment of monetary compensatory amounts under a regulation declared void - Collection rendered definitive by judgment of the Court - Excluded

( EEC Treaty, second paragraph of Art . 174 and second paragraph of Art . 215 )

4.Non-contractual liability - Conditions - Legislative measure involving choices of economic policy - Sufficiently serious breach of a superior rule of law - Technical error - No liability

( EEC Treaty, second paragraph of Art . 215 )

Summary

1.Actions to establish the Community' s liability are governed, pursuant to the second paragraph of Article 215 of the Treaty, by the general principles common to the laws of the Member States . A comparison of the legal systems of the Member States shows that as a general rule, subject to very few exceptions, a court may not of its own motion raise the issue of time limitation . It follows that, in an action to establish liability under Article 178 of the Treaty, it is not appropriate for the Court to examine, of its own motion, the question of any time limitation under Article 43 of the Protocol on the Statute of the Court of Justice of the EEC where that issue has not been raised by the defendant .

2.The action for compensation provided for in Article 178 and the second paragraph of Article 215 of the EEC Treaty was introduced as an autonomous form of action with a particular purpose to fulfil within the system of remedies . Although its admissibility may be conditional in certain cases on the prior exhaustion of the remedies available under domestic law for obtaining satisfaction from the national authorities, it is essential, for that condition to apply, that those remedies under domestic law effectively ensure protection for individuals aggrieved by measures of Community institutions . That is not the case where the reimbursement by the national authorities of monetary compensatory amounts collected pursuant to a Community regulation declared invalid by a judgment of the Court was excluded by that judgment .

3.Since the Court, in declaring invalid a regulation which served as the basis for the charging of monetary compensatory amounts, exercised the power vested in it by the second paragraph of Article 174 of the Treaty and held that the charging thereof could not be challenged, a trader has no grounds, whatever the basis of his claim, for seeking compensation for the damage represented by the sum which he had to pay in respect of those amounts .

4.The Community' s non-contractual liability cannot be incurred through the adoption of legislative measures involving a choice of economic policy unless a sufficiently flagrant violation of a superior rule of law for the protection of the individual has occurred . In a legislative context characterized by a wide margin of discretion, which is essential for the implementation of the common agricultural policy, such liability can therefore be incurred only if the institution concerned has manifestly and gravely disregarded the limits on the exercise of its powers . That is not the case where monetary compensatory amounts are fixed in breach of the applicable basic regulation, as a result of a technical error, even if it led de facto to unequal treatment for certain producers established in countries with weak currencies .