Kingdom of Spain v Council of the European Union.
Date: 2006-09-07
22. It must be observed that the third paragraph of Article 16 of the Statute requires the Court to sit as a Grand Chamber if a request to that effect is made by inter alia an institution of the Communities which is a party to the proceedings, whereas a referral back under Article 44(4) of the Rules of Procedure constitutes a measure which the formation to which the case has been assigned in principle decides on freely and of its own motion.
57. It is settled case-law that the statement of reasons required by Article 253 EC must be appropriate to the nature of the act at issue and must disclose in a clear and unequivocal fashion the reasoning followed by the institution which adopted the measure in question in such a way as to enable the persons concerned to ascertain the reasons for the measure and to enable the Community Court to exercise its power of review. It is not necessary for the reasoning to go into all the relevant facts and points of law, since the question whether the statement of reasons for a measure meets the requirements of Article 253 EC must be assessed with regard not only to its wording but also to its context and to all the legal rules governing the matter in question (see, inter alia, Case C‑26/00 Netherlands  v Commission  [2005] ECR I‑6527, paragraph 113 and the case-law cited).
58. In the case of a measure intended to have general application, as here, the statement of reasons may be limited to indicating, first, the general situation which led to its adoption and, second, the general objectives which it is intended to achieve (see, inter alia, Case C‑342/03 Spain  v Council  [2005] ECR I‑1975, paragraph 55).
59. Moreover, the Court has repeatedly held that if the contested measure clearly discloses the essential objective pursued by the institution, it would be excessive to require a specific statement of reasons for the various technical choices made (see, inter alia, Case C‑284/94 Spain  v Council  [1998] ECR I‑7309, paragraph 30).
69. As the Court has repeatedly held, an act is vitiated by misuse of powers only if it appears, on the basis of objective, relevant and consistent evidence, to have been taken with the exclusive or main purpose of achieving an end other than that stated or evading a procedure specifically prescribed by the Treaty for dealing with the circumstances of the case (see, to that effect, inter alia, Case C‑342/03 Spain  v Council , paragraph 64 and the case-law cited).
81. According to the Court’s settled case-law, any economic operator on whose part an institution has promoted reasonable expectations may rely on the principle of the protection of legitimate expectations. However, if a prudent and circumspect operator could have foreseen that the adoption of a Community measure is likely to affect his interests, he cannot plead that principle if the measure is adopted. Furthermore, while the principle of the protection of legitimate expectations is one of the fundamental principles of the Community, economic operators are not justified in having a legitimate expectation that an existing situation which is capable of being altered by the Community institutions in the exercise of their discretionary power will be maintained, particularly in an area such as that of the common organisation of the markets, the objective of which involves constant adjustment to reflect changes in economic circumstances (Joined Cases C‑37/02 and C‑38/02 Di Lenardo and Dilexport  [2004] ECR I‑6911, paragraph 70 and the case-law cited).
96. The Community legislature has a wide discretion where the common agricultural policy is concerned, corresponding to the political responsibilities given to it by Articles 34 EC to 37 EC. Consequently, judicial review by the Community Court must be limited to verifying that the measure in question is not vitiated by any manifest error or misuse of powers and that the authority concerned has not manifestly exceeded the limits of its discretion (Case C‑189/01 Jippes and Others  [2001] ECR I‑5689, paragraph 80 and the case-law cited).
97. As to review of proportionality, it should be recalled that the principle of proportionality, which is one of the general principles of Community law, requires that acts adopted by Community institutions 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 ( Jippes , paragraph 81 and the case-law cited).
98. As regards judicial review of the implementation of that principle, bearing in mind the wide discretion enjoyed by the Community legislature where the common agricultural policy is concerned, 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 ( Jippes , paragraph 82 and the case-law cited).
99. What must be ascertained is therefore not whether the measure adopted by the legislature was the only one or the best one possible but whether it was manifestly inappropriate (see, to that effect, Jippes , paragraph 83).
121. It is also true that the Community legislature’s broad discretion, which implies limited judicial review of its exercise, applies not only to the nature and scope of the measures to be taken but also, to some extent, to the finding of the basic facts (see, inter alia, Case C‑120/99 Italy  v Council  [2001] ECR I‑7997, paragraph 44).
122. However, even though such judicial review is of limited scope, it requires that the Community institutions which have adopted the act in question must be able to show before the Court that in adopting the act they actually exercised their discretion, which presupposes the taking into consideration of all the relevant factors and circumstances of the situation the act was intended to regulate.
123. It follows that the institutions must at the very least be able to produce and set out clearly and unequivocally the basic facts which had to be taken into account as the basis of the contested measures of the act and on which the exercise of their discretion depended.