Agrana Zucker GmbH v Bundesminister für Land- und Forstwirtschaft, Umwelt und Wasserwirtschaft.
Date: 2010-05-20
29. In that regard, it should be recalled that the principle of proportionality, which is one of the general principles of European Union law, requires that acts adopted by institutions of the European Union do not exceed the limits of what is appropriate and necessary in order to attain the legitimate objectives pursued by the legislation in question; where there is a choice between several appropriate measures, recourse must be had to the least onerous, and the disadvantages caused must not be disproportionate to the aims pursued (Case C‑33/08 Agrana Zucker  [2009] ECR I‑0000, paragraph 31 and the case-law cited).
30. As regards judicial review of the implementation of that principle, it is settled case‑law that the European Union legislature enjoys a wide discretion where the common agricultural policy is concerned, and that, bearing that discretion in mind, the lawfulness of a measure adopted in that sphere can be affected only if the measure is manifestly inappropriate in terms of the objective which the competent institution is seeking to pursue (see Agrana Zucker , paragraph 32 and the case‑law cited).
31. What must be ascertained is therefore not whether the measure adopted by the legislature was the only measure possible or the best measure possible but whether it was manifestly inappropriate (see Agrana Zucker , paragraph 33 and the case-law cited).
32. In the present case, it follows from recital 19 in the preamble to Regulation No 318/2006 that the production charge was introduced to contribute to the financing of the expenditure occurring under the common organisation of the markets in the sugar sector.
33. Since its basis for assessment is the quota attributed to the undertakings, that charge enables the European Union budget to obtain revenues which are stable in that they are not dependent on the quantities actually produced or any withdrawals from the market. Moreover, that determination of the basis for assessment of that charge enables those revenues to be levied during the marketing year, as provided for in Article 16(3) of Regulation No 318/2006.
34. As to the expenditure occurring in the context of the common organisation of the markets in the sugar sector mentioned in recital 19 in the preamble cited above, this cannot refer solely to export refunds of sugar and isoglucose, production refunds for the use of sugar in the chemical industry and the expenditure linked to storage measures, as the applicant in the main proceedings claims.
35. As the Advocate General has pointed out in points 38 to 40 and 81 to 84 of her Opinion, the reform of the common organisation of the markets in the sugar sector reflected the intention of the legislature, in the context of the new common agricultural policy, progressively to abandon the policy of price and production support in the sugar sector in favour of a policy of agricultural income support decoupled from production. A reduction of market support of sugar was partially offset by income support for agricultural undertakings in the form of direct ‘decoupled’ aid. The costs of the new measures, of which the direct decoupled payment was the major element, had to be offset, according to paragraph 5 of the Proposal for a Council Regulation on the common organisation of the markets in the sugar sector (COM(2005) 263 final), mainly by the savings resulting from a substantial reduction in export refund expenditure and the abolition of refining aid, the reform having to respect the status quo expenditure, as proposed at the time of the common agricultural policy proposals in January 2003.
36. Against that background, the objective referred to in recital 19 in the preamble to Regulation No 318/2006 must be understood as meaning that the production charge contributes to financing the various measures in the sugar sector, including the direct decoupled aid which accounts for the highest expenditure.
37. However, it is not contested that the income from the production charge is, for every marketing year, much lower than all that expenditure.
38. Clearly, then, the production charge can be distinguished from the measure at issue in Zuckerfabrik Jülich and Others , in which the Court held that the method of calculating contributions evaluated in paragraphs 57 to 60 of that judgment went beyond what was necessary to attain the objective of Council Regulation (EC) No 1260/2001 of 19 June 2001 on the common organisation of the markets in the sugar sector (OJ 2001 L 178, p. 1), which sought to make producers meet in full, in a fair yet efficient way, the cost of disposing of surpluses of Community production in accordance with the principle of self‑financing.
42. In that regard, it should be noted that the Court has consistently held that the second subparagraph of Article 34(2) EC, which prohibits all discrimination in the context of the common agricultural policy, is merely a specific expression of the general principle of equal treatment, which requires that comparable situations not be treated differently and different situations not be treated alike unless such treatment is objectively justified ( Agrana Zucker , paragraph 46 and the case-law cited).
46. Nevertheless, such treatment of undertakings appears to be objectively justified. As the division of the quotas between undertakings and the management of those quotas are ensured by the Member States, the renouncing of quotas is also organised by each Member State and will vary from one Member State to another. In that context, as is apparent from recital 8 in the preamble to Regulation No 290/2007, the Commission considered it necessary to take into consideration the fact that the constraints associated with the withdrawal could have serious economic consequences for undertakings in Member States which have made particular efforts under the restructuring scheme established by Regulation No 320/2006 and that such an effect would be contrary to the very objective of this scheme and of the common organisation of the markets in the sugar sector, which is to guarantee the viability and competitiveness of that sector. Thus, the object of the partial or total exemption from the application of the withdrawal percentage common to the Member States is to take into account the special efforts which Member States have made to release quotas definitively (see, by analogy, Agrana Zucker , paragraph 51).