Article 5(1) of Regulation No 1782/2003 establishing common rules for direct support schemes under the common agricultural policy and establishing certain support schemes for farmers, read in conjunction with Annex IV to that regulation, must be interpreted as imposing in principle an obligation on Member States to implement, by adopting appropriate rules of general application, all the standards for good agricultural and environmental conditions (‘GAEC standards’) set out in that annex, with the exception, in particular, of the standards ‘Crop rotation’ and ‘Minimum livestock stocking rates and/or appropriate regimes’. That appraisal applies mutatis mutandis and a fortiori to Article 6(1) of Regulation No 73/2009 establishing common rules for direct support schemes for farmers under the common agricultural policy and establishing certain support schemes for farmers, read in conjunction with Annex III to that regulation, which, in accordance with that interpretation, draws an explicit distinction between compulsory standards and optional standards.

The obligation placed on Member States to define the relevant requirements by means of regulatory activity, as provided for by Article 5(1) of Regulation No 1782/2003, means that they are under a duty to ‘comply with’ all the standards laid down in Annex IV to Regulation No 1728/2003 and is closely linked to a certain discretion on the Member States’ part when actually defining those requirements on the basis of those standards, which are themselves based on general concepts and terms the actual implementation of which necessarily implies the existence of a discretion. However, it does not follow from the wording of Article 5(1) of Regulation No 1782/2003 that the Member States are, where appropriate, authorised not to implement at all certain of the standards for good agricultural and environmental conditions. Given the lack of precision of Article 5(1) of that regulation on that point, it is necessary to refer to the wording of each of those standards taken individually in order to determine whether they are binding and the extent of the discretion left to the Member States as regards their determination and their actual implementation.

Moreover, even if, according to the Member State concerned, the agricultural land or the areas in question already presented in themselves characteristics more or less in keeping with the objectives of Regulation No 1782/2003, thus making the GAEC standards unnecessary or their implementation disproportionate, that sole fact does not, in the light of the principle of legal certainty, release that Member State from its obligation to implement the relevant provisions of that regulation by adopting appropriate rules. The fact nonetheless remains that, in the exercise of the discretion which the general and imprecise terms characterising the GAEC standards leave it, the Member State is in a position to amend them and to give concrete form to them in such a way that they are adapted to the ‘national context’. On the other hand, it cannot completely decline to implement them. Implementation of GAEC standards by means of appropriate national rules is also designed to allow controls and sanctions in the event of non-compliance. Having regard to the fundamental requirement for control and sanction, the Member State concerned cannot rely on its alleged discretion or the principle of proportionality to justify a total failure to implement those standards, and the Commission is entitled to insist on such an implementation of those standards, if only for the purposes of setting up a complete and effective control and sanction system.

(see paras 43, 44, 62, 65, 66)