Cooperativa Lattepiù arl v Azienda di Stato per gli interventi nel mercato agricolo (AIMA) (C-231/00), Azienda Agricola Marcello Balestreri e Maura Lena v Regione Lombardia and Azienda di Stato per gli interventi nel mercato agricolo (AIMA) (C-303/00), and Azienda Agricola Giuseppe Cantarello v Azienda di Stato per gli interventi nel mercato agricolo (AIMA) and Ministero delle Politiche Agricole e Forestali (C- 451/00).
Date: 2004-03-25
38. According to the applicants in the main proceedings, the mandatory nature of those time-limits is also confirmed by the Court’s case-law in relation both to the additional levy on milk (Case C-292/97 Karlsson  [2000] ECR I-2737, paragraph 32, and Case C-356/97 Molkereigenossenscahft Wiedergelingen  [2000] ECR I-5461, paragraphs 38, 40 and 41) and to sugar (Case C-1/94 Cavarzere Produzioni Industriali and Others  [1995] ECR I-2363).
56. According to the general principles on which the Community is based and which govern relations between it and the Member States, it is for the latter, under Article 5 of the EC Treaty (now Article 10 EC), to ensure that Community rules are implemented within their territories.  In so far as Community law, including its general principles, does not include common rules to that effect then, when the national authorities implement Community rules, they are to act in accordance with the procedural and substantive rules of their own national law (see, in particular, Case C-285/93 Dominikanerinnen-Kloster Altenhohenau  [1995] ECR I-4069, paragraph 26, and Karlsson and Others , cited above, paragraph 27).
57. Nevertheless, when adopting measures to implement Community legislation, national authorities must exercise their discretion in compliance with the general rules of Community law, which include the principles of proportionality, legal certainty and the protection of legitimate expectations (see, to that effect, Case C-313/99 Mulligan and Others  [2002] ECR I-5719, paragraphs 35 and 36).
61. Regulation No 3950/92 is intended to extend the additional milk levy scheme introduced by earlier legislation and is based on the premiss that milk quotas have already been allocated in all the Member States respectively (see Karlsson and Others, paragraph 32).
68. Although the time-limits prescribed by those articles are mandatory (see, to that effect, Molkereigenossenschaft Wiedergeltingen , paragraphs 38 to 40), the fact remains that they do not preclude the competent authorities of a Member State from making after-the-event checks and corrections for the purpose of ensuring that that Member State’s production does not exceed the guaranteed global quantity allocated to it.
70. It ought also at this point to be recalled that, in accordance with the eighth recital in the preamble to Regulation No 536/93, the Member States must have suitable means of conducting ex-post  checks to verify whether, and if so to what extent, the levy has been collected in accordance with the provisions in force.  Such checks are provided for by Article 7 of that regulation in order to ensure the accuracy of the statements of collection and declarations of direct sales drawn up by purchasers and producers.  It is clear, first, that such checks can be made only after the milk-marketing year concerned has ended and, second, that they may result in the correcting of the reference quantities allocated and, in consequence, in the recalculating of the levies payable.
73. As regards the principle of proportionality, it must first be noted that the purpose of the additional levy system is to re-establish, by limiting milk production, the balance between supply and demand in the milk market, which is characterised by structural surpluses.  This measure, therefore, is within the ambit of the objectives of rational development of milk production and, by contributing to a stabilisation of the income of the agricultural community affected, that of ensuring a fair standard of living for the agricultural community (Case 84/87 Erpelding  [1988] ECR 2647, paragraph 26).
74. It follows that, contrary to the arguments of the applicants in the main proceedings, the additional levy is not to be regarded as a penalty analogous to those provided for under Articles 3 and 4 of Regulation No 536/93.  The additional levy on milk amounts to a restriction arising from market policy rules or structural policy (see, to that effect, Case C-177/90 Kühn  [1992] ECR I-35, paragraph 13).
75. Next, as Article 10 of Regulation No 3950/92 clearly shows, the additional levy is to be considered to be intervention to stabilise agricultural markets and is to be used to finance expenditure in the milk sector.  It follows that, apart from its obvious aim of requiring milk producers to observe the reference quantities allocated to them, the additional levy has an economic objective too, in that it is intended to bring to the Community the funds necessary for disposal of milk produced by producers in excess of their quotas.