Commission of the European Communities v Council of the European Communities.
Date: 1989-10-24
10 When, however, the power of decision is conferred by the Treaty on the Council, the Commission could, even before the Single European Act, be empowered to adopt implementing measures under the fourth indent of Article 155 of the Treaty . In certain cases, moreover, as was provided explicitly in Article 79(4 ), or implicitly in Article 87(2)(d ), of the Treaty, it was given responsibility for the application of rules to particular situations . Finally, after the amendments made to Article 145 by the Single European Act, the Council may reserve the right to exercise implementing powers directly only in specific cases, and it must state in detail the grounds for such a decision . In the field of agriculture, governed by Article 43 of the Treaty, with which this case is concerned, the allocation of implementing powers is determined by the third indent of Article 145 of the Treaty, as amended by the Single European Act .
11 The concept of implementation for the purposes of that article comprises both the drawing up of implementing rules and the application of rules to specific cases by means of acts of individual application . Since the Treaty uses the word "implementation" without restricting it by the addition of any further qualification, that term cannot be interpreted so as to exclude acts of individual application .
12 Under the system established by the Treaty as it stood before the Single European Act, the Court ruled, in its judgment of 17 December 1970 in Case 25/70 Einfuhr - und Vorratsstelle v Koester (( 1970 )) ECR 1161, paragraphs 9 and 10, that if the Council could confer implementing powers on the Commission under Article 155 of the Treaty it could also make the exercise of those powers subject to a management committee procedure which enabled the Council to take the decision itself if it saw fit, and that the legality of the management committee procedure could not be disputed in relation to the institutional structure of the Community .
15 It must now be considered whether, as the Commission maintains, the Council has, by making the adoption of the decisions which it empowered the Commission to take subject to the management committee procedure, encroached upon the Commission' s power under Article 205 of the Treaty to implement the budget on its own responsibility .
16 It must be stressed in that regard that the Commission' s power to implement the budget is not such as to modify the division of powers resulting from the various provisions of the Treaty which authorize the Council and the Commission to adopt generally applicable or individual measures within specific areas, such as Article 43, which is in issue in the present case, and from the institutional provisions of the third indent of Article 145 and Article 155 .
17 Even though an individual measure may almost inevitably entail the commitment of expenditure, the two must be distinguished - particularly since the power to adopt the administrative decision and the power to commit the expenditure may be entrusted, within the internal organization of each institution, to different officials .
18 It follows that the Commission is wrong to maintain that the Council cannot confer upon it under the third indent of Article 145 the power to adopt individual measures when such measures have financial implications .
19 That interpretation, which rules out the possibility that commitments of expenditure might in themselves and irrespective of any substantive decision impose legally binding obligations on the Community vis-à-vis third parties, is, moreover, in conformity with the system of supervision of the implementation of the budget in which the European Parliament has been given, under Article 206b of the Treaty, the power to give a discharge to the Commission, and in which the Court of Auditors is required to assist the European Parliament within the limits defined in Article 206a(2 ) of the Treaty and Article 80 of the Financial Regulation adopted by the Council on 21 December 1977 ( Official Journal 1977, L 356, p . 1 ) in accordance with Article 209 of the Treaty .