Keywords

Summary



Keywords

1. Non-contractual liability - Conditions - Unlawful conduct of the institutions - Milk producers deprived of reference quantities under the additional milk levy system after suspending their deliveries under the non-marketing premium system - Producer who transferred his holding after the non-marketing undertaking expired - Breach of legitimate expectations - None

(EC Treaty, Art. 215, second para. (now Art. 288, second para., EC); Council Regulation No 857/84, Art. 7(1))

2. Actions for damages - Limitation period - Liability incurred on account of Regulation No 857/84 providing that reference quantities were not to be allocated to milk producers who had entered into non-marketing undertakings - Temporary waiver of the right to plead limitation - Scope

(Council and Commission Communication 92/C 198/04)

Summary

1. Community liability for damage caused to certain milk producers as a result of the application of Regulation No 857/84 fixing, under the additional milk levy system, the reference quantity for each producer on the basis of the production delivered during a reference year is based on breach of the legitimate expectation which those producers, who were encouraged by a Community measure to suspend marketing of milk for a limited period in the general interest and against payment of a premium, were entitled to have in the limited scope of their non-marketing undertakings.

Accordingly a producer cannot maintain that the application of the requirement that, in order to be granted a special reference quantity, producers must be able to prove that on the date of making such application they still operate the holding in question, in whole or in part, in his case constitutes an infringement of the principle of protection of legitimate expectations, in that he could not foresee, at the time of transferring his holding, that such a condition would be imposed. That requirement merely establishes in relation to special reference quantities the principle laid down in Article 7(1) of Regulation No 857/84 that the reference quantity is transferred with the land in respect of which it was allocated.

( see paras 40, 47-48 )

2. The waiver of the right to plead that the action brought against the Community by milk producers deprived of reference quantities under the additional milk levy system after suspending their deliveries under the non-marketing premium system was time-barred (contained in the Communication of the Council and the Commission in connection with the subsequent adoption of Regulation No 2187/93 providing for an offer of compensation for the producers concerned) was a unilateral act which was intended to limit the number of actions brought by encouraging producers to await the introduction of the flat-rate compensation scheme provided for by that Regulation. That Communication was specifically aimed at producers whose entitlement to compensation was not yet time-barred on the date on which it was published in the Official Journal or on the date on which they had already applied to one of the institutions. By the latter reference, the Council and the Commission were referring to producers who had applied to the institutions before the publication of the Communication in order to claim entitlement to compensation and who had been requested not to initiate actions for damages pending the adoption of the regulation determining flat-rate compensation. The purpose of that reference was to protect those producers' entitlement to compensation.

A producer whose letter addressed to the Council and the Commission was never followed by a reply does not satisfy those conditions, since they had not given any commitment in his regard. In those circumstances, that producer cannot rely on that Communication.

( see paras 65-67 )