Johan Piek v Ministerie van Landbouw, Natuurbeheer en Visserij.
Date: 2007-01-11
29. As regards the derogations set out in the first subparagraph of Article 3(1) of Regulation No 857/84, the Court has acknowledged that the Member States have a discretion to decide whether or not special reference quantities should be allocated to the producers mentioned in that provision (Case C‑63/93 Duff and Others  [1996] ECR I‑569, paragraph 11) and to determine, if necessary, the size of those allocations in order to take account of a development plan in the course of implementation (Joined Cases 196/88 to 198/88 Cornée and Others  [1989] ECR 2309, paragraph 13) or a development plan implemented after 1 January 1981 (Case C‑16/89 Spronk  [1990] ECR I‑3185, paragraphs 11 and 12).
32. Where a Member State chooses to make use of its power to allocate special reference quantities pursuant to the first subparagraph of Article 3(1) of Regulation No 857/84, its margin of discretion is restricted by requirements which result from the wording of the provision in question, the objective which it is designed to attain and the principle of non-discrimination (see Spronk , paragraphs 13 and 17).
34. In addition, it is settled case-law that, when adopting measures to implement Community legislation, national authorities must exercise their discretion in compliance with the general principles of Community law, which include the principle of proportionality (see, inter alia, Case C‑313/99 Mulligan and Others  [2002] ECR I‑5719, paragraphs 35 and 36; Joined Cases C‑231/00, C‑303/00 and C‑451/00 Cooperativa Lattepiú and Others  [2004] ECR I‑2869, paragraph 57; and Case C‑496/04 Slob  [2006] ECR I‑0000, paragraph 41).
40. As regards the objective of Article 3(1) of Regulation No 857/84, it is to enable the Member States to adapt the reference quantities in order to take into account the special situations of certain producers (see Duff and Others , paragraph 13). However, as is apparent from Article 5 of that regulation, that objective must be pursued within the limits of the reserve constituted by the Member State concerned within the guaranteed quantity.
41. It therefore follows from reading Article 3(1) in conjunction with Article 5 of Regulation No 857/84 that, although the Community legislature intended to grant the Member States the power to enable producers who have incurred investment obligations to enjoy the fruits of their investments (see, to that effect, Cornée and Others , paragraph 12, and Spronk , paragraph 15), the power of the Member States to grant special reference quantities for that purpose can be exercised only within the limits of the guaranteed quantity and those quantities are met from the national reserve. Contrary to Mr Piek’s submission, such a constraint may be capable of justifying a temporal limitation of the investment obligations that may be taken into account in that regard.
46. As pointed out by the Netherlands Government, it must also be added that the taking into account of investment obligations incurred before 1 September 1981 could have given rise to the risk of misuse of the rules on milk quotas. It would have enabled producers to rely on old investment obligations, prior to that date, in order to gain special reference quantities, not with the aim of producing or marketing milk but with that of obtaining a purely financial advantage from their market value (see, to that effect, Case C‑44/89 von Deetzen  [1991] ECR I‑5119, paragraph 24, and Case C‑401/99 Thomsen  [2002] ECR I‑5775, paragraphs 39 and 45).