Tj. Twijnstra v Minister van Landbouw, Natuurbeheer en Visserij.
Date: 1993-05-19
11 It should be pointed out in limine that the Community rules on the additional levy on milk did not originally include any specific provision envisaging that a reference quantity would be granted to producers who, pursuant to an undertaking given under Regulation No 1078/77, had not delivered milk during the reference year chosen by the Member State concerned. In Case 120/86 Mulder v Minister van Landbouw en Visserij [1988] ECR 2321, paragraph 28, and Case 170/86 Von Deetzen v Hauptzollamt Hamburg-Jonas [1988] ECR 2355, paragraph 17, however, the Court declared that those rules were invalid on the ground that they had been adopted in breach of the principle of the protection of legitimate expectations.
12 In those judgments the Court held that a producer who had voluntarily ceased production for a time could not legitimately expect to be able to resume production under the same conditions as those which previously applied and not to be subject to any rules of market or structural policy adopted in the meantime (Mulder, paragraph 23; Von Deetzen, paragraph 12). On the other hand, the Court considered that where such a producer had been encouraged by a Community measure to suspend the marketing of his products for a limited period in the general interest and against payment of a premium he might legitimately expect not to be subject, upon the expiry of his undertaking, to restrictions which specifically affected him precisely because he had availed himself of the possibilities offered by the Community provisions (Mulder, paragraph 24; Von Deetzen, paragraph 13).
23 In the second place, it should be pointed out that the proposed interpretation is incompatible with the principle of the protection of legitimate expectations on which the transferee may rely. As the transferee has acquired part of the transferor' s holding and has assumed the non-marketing undertaking, he may legitimately expect, like the producers referred to in the Mulder and Von Deetzen judgments, to be able to re-use the land transferred for the purpose of milk production once the non-marketing period has ended. To exclude the transferee from that possibility would be to ignore the principle of the protection of legitimate expectations.
24 The third subparagraph of Article 3a(2) of Regulation No 857/84 must be interpreted in a manner compatible with the principle of the protection of legitimate expectations, since that is one of the general principles of Community law.
25 Finally, the entire system of reference quantities is based on the general principle, laid down in Article 7 of Regulation No 857/84 and in Article 5 of Commission Regulation (EEC) No 1371/84 of 16 May 1984 laying down detailed rules for the application of the additional levy referred to in Article 5c of Regulation (EEC) No 804/68 (OJ 1984 L 132, p. 11), which provides that in the case of partial transfer of a holding the reference quantity is to be granted to the transferee in proportion to the land transferred. It does not appear from the statement of the reasons on which the regulation in question is based that the Community legislature intended to derogate from that general principle.