Silos e Mangimi Martini SpA v Ministero delle Finanze.
Date: 2001-11-08
15 According to the case-law of the Court of Justice, a regulation can validly enter into force on the date of its publication (see, inter alia, the judgment in Case 57/72 Westzucker [1973] ECR 321, paragraph 19). The Court has also held that, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, a regulation is to be regarded as published throughout the Community on the date borne by the Official Journal of the European Communities containing the text of that regulation (Case 98/78 Racke [1979] ECR 69, paragraph 17). The Court has stated in this respect that, should evidence be produced indicating that that date does not correspond to the date on which the issue was in fact available, in the version in the language of the party, at the Office of Official Publications of the European Communities at Luxembourg, regard must be had to the later date (Racke, cited above, paragraph 15, and Case C-370/96 Covita [1998] ECR I-7711, paragraph 27).
27 In that regard, it must be pointed out that it follows from the settled case-law of the Court that the statement of reasons required by Article 190 of the EC Treaty must be appropriate to the nature of the measure in question. It must show clearly and unequivocally the reasoning of the institution which enacted the measure so as to inform the persons concerned of the justification for the measure adopted and to enable the Court to exercise its powers of review. Furthermore, the statement of reasons for a measure is not required to specify the matters of fact or of law dealt with, provided that the measure falls within the general scheme of the body of measures of which it forms part (Case C-244/95 Moskof [1997] ECR I-6441, paragraph 57).
28 However, it is also accepted that, although the reasons for a decision in a line of consistent decisions may be given in a summary manner, for example by a reference to those decisions, the Community authority must give an explicit account of its reasoning if the decision goes appreciably further than the previous decisions (Case 350/88 Delacre and Others v Commission [1990] ECR I-395, paragraph 15, and to that effect, Moskof, paragraph 54).
33 In that regard, it must be stated that it follows from the case-law of the Court that, contrary to the Commission's submission, a declaration by the Court that a regulation which has impliedly revoked another is invalid entails, in principle, the right of the parties concerned to be placed in the same situation as if the revocation had not taken place (see, to this effect, Case 201/87 Cargill [1989] ECR 489, paragraph 21).
35 As regards the Commission's request that the Court should limit the effects in time of the declaration of invalidity of Regulation No 1521/95, it must be recalled that the Court has consistently held (see, for example, Joined Cases C-38/90 and C-151/90 Lomas and Others [1992] ECR I-1781, paragraph 23) that, where it is justified by overriding considerations of legal certainty, the second paragraph of Article 231 EC, which is also applicable by analogy to a reference under Article 234 EC for a preliminary ruling on the validity of a measure adopted by the Community institutions, confers on the Court a discretion to decide, in each particular case, which specific effects of a regulation that has been declared void must be regarded as definitive.
36 In accordance with that case-law, the Court has used the possibility of limiting the temporal effect of a declaration that a Community measure is invalid where overriding considerations of legal certainty involving all the interests, public as well as private, at stake in the cases concerned precluded the calling into question of the charging or payment of sums of money effected on the basis of that measure in respect of the period prior to the date of the judgment (see, inter alia, Case 4/79 Providence agricole de la Champagne [1980] ECR 2823, paragraphs 45 and 46, and Case 41/84 Pinna [1986] ECR 1, paragraph 28).