ddrg/super_eurlex huggingface dataset:
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Actions for annulment ° Natural or legal persons ° Measures of direct or individual concern to them ° Regulation establishing the value of the final regional reference amounts for certain oilseeds ° Proceedings brought by colza producers ° Inadmissibility

(EEC Treaty, Art. 173, second para.; Commission Regulation No 525/93)

Summary

The action brought by Bavarian colza producers for annulment of Regulation No 525/93 establishing the value of the final regional reference amounts for producers of soya beans, rape seed, colza seed and sunflower seed for the 1992/93 marketing year is inadmissible.

That regulation must be regarded as a measure of general application directed, on a general and abstract basis, to all the producers concerned, since each of the three factors on the basis of which the said amounts are established is determined on the basis of data of a general and abstract nature, without taking any account of the situation of individual producers. The position is the same as regards the final regional reference amount fixed for Bavaria.

Whilst it is true that those producers in fact formed part, at the time when that regulation was adopted, of a fixed number of producers, namely those who had sown the seed for the harvest in question, lodged an application containing the data and declarations required, submitted a harvest declaration and received an advance payment, that "closed class" results from the very nature of the system established by Regulation No 3766/91 establishing a support system for producers of the seeds concerned, and concerns those producers no differently from all other oilseed producers in the same situation.

Moreover, the mere fact that those producers lodged the necessary applications and declarations, and that they were already in receipt of an advance payment, is not such as to establish that their specific rights have been adversely affected to such an extent that they must be regarded as individually concerned, since, first, prior to the adoption of Regulation No 525/93, they had not acquired any right to the direct payment of a precise total amount and, second, their legal situation did not differ from that of all the other Community producers to whom that regulation applied.
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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 - Need to establish an intention to resume milk production upon expiry of their non-marketing undertaking - Provisional reference quantity obtained at a later date - No effect

(EC Treaty, Art. 215, second para. (now Art. 288, second para. EC); Council Regulations Nos 1078/77 and 857/84)

Summary

$$Community liability for damage caused to certain milk producers as a result of the application of Regulation No 857/74 fixing, under the additional milk levy system, the reference quantity for each producer on the basis of production delivered during a reference year, is subject to the condition that those producers clearly manifested their intention to resume milk production upon expiry of their non-marketing undertaking given under Regulation No 1078/77. In order for the illegality which led the Court of Justice to declare the regulations giving rise to the situation of those producers invalid to entitle those producers to damages, the producers must have been prevented from resuming milk production. That means that the producers whose undertakings expired before the entry into force of Regulation No 857/84 resumed production or at least took steps to do so, such as making investments or repairs, or maintaining the equipment necessary for such production.

From that point of view, the fact that a producer was refused a quota because, when he applied for it, he did not fulfil the conditions laid down in the Community legislation designed to cure the invalidity of Regulation No 857/84, does not exclude his having, upon expiry of his undertaking, a legitimate expectation in the possibility of resuming milk production and therefore his being entitled to compensation. On the other hand, it may also be the case that producers did not intend to resume milk production upon expiry of their undertaking and were allocated a reference quantity some years later, in so far as they fulfilled the conditions then required. Consequently, the fact that a producer obtained a provisional reference quantity at a later date does not in itself prove that upon expiry of his non-marketing undertaking he had the intention to resume milk production.

( see paras 46, 52-53 )
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Agriculture - Common organization of the markets - Sheepmeat and goatmeat - Variable slaughter premium - Equivalent amount levied on export to another Member State (`clawback') - Recovery of clawback unlawfully charged - Detailed rules laid down by Regulation No 1922/92 - Breach of the principles of protection of legitimate expectations, legal certainty or proportionality - None

(Commission Regulation No 1922/92, Art. 2)

Summary

In so far as Article 2 of Regulation No 1922/92 amending Regulation No 1633/84 laying down detailed rules for applying the variable slaughter premium for sheep and determining the conditions for the reimbursement of the clawback following the judgment of the Court of Justice in Joined Cases C-38/90 and C-151/90 Lomas and Others provides for reimbursement merely of the difference between the clawback paid under Article 4 of the amended Regulation and the amount of the premium actually received, it breaches neither the principle of protection of legitimate expectations nor the principle of legal certainty. Given that the requests for payment of the clawback under Article 4 were not wholly devoid of legal authority, that the operators granted a premium should have expected that it would have to be recouped on export of the products and that the national law applicable on the date of the Court's judgment made it difficult to recover in full amounts unlawfully charged by a public authority, it does not appear that the traders concerned could legitimately harbour the slightest expectation, based on the facts or on national law, of full recovery of the clawback paid before that judgment was delivered.

Nor is the validity of Article 2(1) affected by the fact that the second subparagraph thereof provides an alternative method of calculating the amount to be reimbursed, based on the average amount of the premiums over a period of four weeks, since that alternative was made available in recognition of the difficulties encountered by some operators in providing proof as to premiums actually paid.

So far as concerns the difficulties mentioned above, the placing of the burden of proof on the exporters is not manifestly inappropriate and consequently does not contravene the principle of proportionality, since a prudent trader, knowing that he would be liable to pay the clawback, should have taken the necessary steps to obtain the evidence which would be required in due course to establish the amounts in question.
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1. Community law ° Application by analogy ° Application of the principles governing the European civil service to a competition for selecting works of art to be installed in a building belonging to a Community institution ° Excluded

2. Actions for annulment of measures ° Competition procedure for selecting works of art to be installed in a building belonging to a Community institution ° Decisions of the committee for selecting the works of art ° Review by the Court ° Limits

3. Non-contractual liability ° Conditions ° Fault on the part of an institution ° Damage ° Causal link

(EC Treaty, Art. 215, second para.)

Summary

1. The selection of works of art to be placed in a building belonging to a Community institution and the recruitment of officials differ so much, as regards both subject-matter and purpose, that it is not possible to proceed by analogy and apply to an artists' competition the principles which govern the European civil service.

2. Where a committee set up to select works of art has, as shown by the Council' s decision establishing the committee, a wide discretion with respect to the course of the competition to be organized for selecting those works and the artists who create them, review by the Community judicature of that committee' s decisions must be limited to establishing that there was no manifest error in the assessment of the facts, no manifest breach of the rules governing the adoption of the decisions at issue, and no misuse of powers.

3. An applicant who seeks compensation for damage allegedly caused by a Community institution must show fault on the part of the institution, the fact of certain and quantifiable damage, and a causal link between the wrongful act and the damage complained of.
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Agriculture - Common organization of the markets - Fats - Olive oil - Marketing within the Community - Conditions - Determination of characteristics of olive oil by Regulation No 1429/92 - No transitional measures for olive oil in bulk - Infringement of the principles of protection of legitimate expectations, non-discrimination, proportionality or respect for acquired rights - None

(Commission Regulation No 1429/92)

Summary

By not providing, in its Regulation No 1429/92 amending Regulation No 2568/91 on the characteristics of various categories of olive oil, for transitional provisions in favour of traders holding olive oil in bulk under suspensory customs arrangements, the Commission did not act illegally in such a way as to render the Community liable. In fact, it did not infringe the principles of the protection of legitimate expectations, non-discrimination or proportionality, or the acquired rights of the traders concerned.
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Competition - Agreements, decisions and concerted practices - Proof - Evidence adduced by the Commission - Insufficient proof of an undertaking's participation in a cartel - Annulment of the Commission's decision as regards the undertaking concerned

(EC Treaty, Arts 85 and 173)

Summary

The items of evidence on which the Commission relies in the Decision in order to prove the existence of an infringement of Article 85(1) of the Treaty by an undertaking must not be assessed separately, but as a whole.

Where, even when the documents before it are considered as a whole, the Court finds that their probative value is not sufficient to prove that an undertaking has committed an infringement of Article 85(1) of the Treaty, the Commission's decision finding such infringement must be annulled in so far as it concerns that undertaking.
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1 ECSC - Agreements, decisions and concerted practices - Fines - Amount - Determination thereof - Criteria - Turnover

(ECSC Treaty, Art. 65(5))

2 ECSC - Agreements, decisions and concerted practices - Fines - Amount - Determination thereof - Cases in which the fine is fixed by the Community judicature - Unlimited jurisdiction

(ECSC Treaty, Art. 36, second para.)

Summary

1 Under Article 65(5) of the ECSC Treaty, the Commission is required to take into account the turnover of the undertaking concerned as the basic criterion for calculating the fine. That approach is based on the principle that the turnover in the products which have been the subject of a restrictive practice constitutes an objective criterion giving a proper measure of the harm which that practice does to normal competition.

In the absence of extenuating or aggravating circumstances, or other duly established exceptional circumstances, the Commission is required, by virtue of the principle of equal treatment, to apply, for the purpose of calculating the fine, the same reference rate to all undertakings which have taken part in the same infringement.

2 By its nature, the fixing of a fine by the Court of First Instance in the exercise of its unlimited jurisdiction is not an arithmetically precise operation. Moreover, the Court is not bound by the Commission's calculations, but must carry out its own assessment, taking all the circumstances of the case into account.
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Non-contractual liability – Conditions – Unlawful conduct of the institutions

(Art. 288, second para., EC; Council Regulations Nos 857/84 and 2187/93)

Summary

The Community’s liability as regards milk producers who entered into a non-marketing undertaking is incurred in respect of each producer who suffered loss because he was prevented from delivering milk by Regulation No 857/84 adopting general rules for the application of the levy referred to in Article 5c of Regulation No 804/68 in the milk and milk products sector. That liability is based on breach of the principle of the protection of legitimate expectations. However, that principle may be invoked against Community legislation only to the extent that the Community itself previously created a situation which could give rise to a legitimate expectation.

Therefore, producers whose undertaking expired in 1983 can validly base their actions for compensation on infringement of that principle only where they show that their reasons for not resuming milk production during the reference year are connected with the fact that they had stopped production for a certain time and that they were unable, for reasons to do with the organisation of that production, to resume production immediately. It follows that those producers must prove that they clearly manifested their intention to resume milk production upon expiry of their non‑marketing undertaking.

In that regard, the fact that the producer subsequently obtained a provisional reference quantity, which was later converted into a definitive reference quantity, does not in itself prove that upon expiry of his non-marketing undertaking he had the intention to resume milk production.

Likewise, the fact that a producer received an offer of compensation under Regulation No 2187/93 providing for an offer of compensation to certain producers of milk and milk products temporarily prevented from carrying on their trade cannot constitute proof of fulfilment of the conditions necessary for establishing the liability of the Community for the damage alleged.

(see paras 103-104, 107-108, 119, 124)
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Summary



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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 - Need to establish an intention to resume milk production upon expiry of their non-marketing undertaking - Provisional reference quantity obtained at a later date - No effect

(EC Treaty, Art. 215, second para. (now Art. 288, second para., EC); Council Regulations Nos 1078/77 and 857/84)

Summary

$$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 subject to the condition that those producers clearly manifested their intention to resume milk production upon expiry of their non-marketing undertaking given under Regulation No 1078/77. In order for the illegality which led the Court of Justice to declare the regulations giving rise to the situation of those producers invalid to entitle those producers to damages, the producers must have been prevented from resuming milk production. That means that the producers whose undertakings expired before the entry into force of Regulation No 857/84 resumed production or at least took steps to do so, such as making investments or repairs, or maintaining the equipment necessary for such production.

From that point of view, the fact that a producer was refused a quota because, when he applied for it, he did not fulfil the conditions laid down in the Community legislation designed to cure the invalidity of Regulation No 857/84, does not exclude his having, upon expiry of his undertaking, a legitimate expectation in the possibility of resuming milk production and therefore his being entitled to compensation. On the other hand, it may also be the case that producers did not intend to resume milk production upon expiry of their undertaking and were allocated a reference quantity some years later, in so far as they fulfilled the conditions then required. Consequently, the fact that a producer obtained a provisional reference quantity at a later date does not in itself prove that upon expiry of his non-marketing undertaking he had the intention to resume milk production.

( see paras 45, 51-52 )
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ECSC - Aid to the steel industry - Authorization by the Commission - Conditions for granting aid intended to bring existing plant into line with new environmental protection standards - Strict interpretation - Replacement of existing plant by new plant - Excluded

(ECSC Treaty, Art. 4; Commission Decision No 3855/91/ECSC)

Summary

The clear wording of Article 3 of Decision No 3855/91 establishing Community rules for aid to the steel industry does not provide for the possibility of granting aid to firms which, instead of simply adapting existing plant, decide to replace it by new plant meeting the new environmental protection standards, even though the EC guidelines on State aid for environmental protection, published in 1994, allow for such a possibility.

Firstly, Decision No 3855/91, which, as a derogation from Article 4 of the ECSC Treaty, must be interpreted strictly, introduced rules which allow aid to be granted to the steel industry in a limited number of specified cases, and Article 1(1) thereof posits the principle that such aid may be deemed Community aid and therefore compatible with the orderly functioning of the common market only if it satisfies the provisions of Articles 2 to 5. The compatibility of aid must therefore be assessed in the light of those provisions.

Secondly, the automatic application to the steel sector of the EC guidelines on State aid for environmental protection is not provided for in Decision No 3855/91, nor can it be inferred from the principle stated in the preamble to that decision, that the steel industry and other industries must have equal access to aid for environmental protection.

Thirdly, the EC framework on State aid for environmental protection in force when Decision No 3855/91 was adopted did not provide for the possibility, allowed in the 1994 guidelines, of granting aid for investment intended to replace existing plant by new plant.
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Agriculture - Common organisation of the markets - Milk and milk products - Additional levy on milk - Reduction without compensation of the reference quantities exempt from the levy - Right to property - Principle of the protection of legitimate expectations - Principle of equality - Breach - None

(EC Treaty, Art. 39(1)(b) and Art. 40(3), second para.; Council Regulation No 816/92)

Summary

The reduction by Regulation No 816/92 of the reference quantities exempt from the additional levy on milk for 1992/93, without compensation, did not breach the right to property, the principle of protection of legitimate expectations or the principle of equality.

First, that measure was justified by the concern to continue with the rationalisation of the milk market, following other similar measures adopted for previous years, and the reduction in question was not so large that it exceeded a tolerable interference, so that it did not affect the very substance of the right to property. Moreover, the Council could legitimately, within the framework of its wide discretion in the sphere of the common agricultural policy, give temporary priority to the objective of stabilising the market, as the measures adopted contribute, by means of a rational development of production, to maintaining a fair standard of living for the agricultural community within the meaning of Article 39(1)(b) of the Treaty.

Second, as the Council and the Commission did not create a situation in which milk producers could legitimately expect that the quantities temporarily withdrawn would be restored, and since the duration of the temporary withdrawal scheme was intrinsically linked, from its entry into force as well as from its renewal, to the duration of the additional levy scheme, those producers cannot claim that the institutions aroused a legitimate expectation on their part.

Third, since the temporary withdrawal arrangements at issue are such that the quantities withdrawn are proportional to the reference quantities, and are thus based on objective rules which are formulated to meet the needs of the general common organisation of the market, they do not constitute discrimination between producers.

The above conclusions are not affected where a trader has acquired additional reference quantities from the national authorities in addition to the reference quantity originally allocated.
JUDGMENT OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE (Fourth Chamber)

16 September 1998

Case T-215/97

Sari Kristiina Jouhki

v

Commission of the European Communities

‛Officials — Notice of competition — Non-admission to the competition’

Full text in Finnish II-1513

Application for:

annulment of the decision of the selection board in competition COM/B/973 not to admit the applicant to the competition.

Decision:

Application dismissed.

Abstract of the Judgment

The applicant was a candidate in competition COM/B/973 to constitute a reserve list for recruitment of assistants (grade B 5/B 4 — nurses) of Austrian, Finnish or Swedish nationality.

The notice of competition provided that ‘as at the date prescribed for the submission of applications, candidates must: (a) have completed a course of advanced secondary education and obtained a final certificate or diploma, and have completed a course of nursing training and obtained a certificate or diploma recognised by a competent authority’.

The applicant submitted her application within the prescribed time-limit. She annexed to her application form only a copy of the final diploma obtained by her on completion of her course of nursing training.

Upon being refused admission to the competition, she lodged a complaint and, upon that complaint being rejected, she brought proceedings.

Substance

The first plea, alleging infringement of the terms of the competition notice

The competition notice unambiguously requires candidates, on pain of being refused admission to the competition, to forward to the competition selection board, before the deadline, documents showing the successful completion by them of, in particular, a course of advanced secondary education. It is common ground that the applicant did not forward to the competition selection board, before the deadline, a copy of her final certificate or diploma awarded on the completion of such a course (paragraphs 53 and 54).

The decision of the selection board not to admit the applicant to the competition was therefore adopted in full compliance with the terms of the competition notice.

The second plea, alleging breach of the principle of equal treatment

There is a breach of the principle of equal treatment where two categories of person whose factual and legal circumstances disclose no essential difference are treated differently or where situations which are different are treated in an identical manner (paragraph 62).

See: T-18/89 and T-24/89 Tagaras v Court of Justice [1991] ECR II-53, para. 68; T-207/95 Ibarra Gil v Commission [1997] ECRSC II-31, para. 68

In the present case, the applicant has not in any way shown that the Commission applied different treatment to candidates who forwarded their application files in the same way, namely annexing only their nurse's diploma and not their final certificate or diploma awarded on the completion of a course of advanced secondary education (paragraph 63).

Operative part:

The application is dismissed.