Commission of the European Communities v United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Date: 2002-11-14
27 It should be observed at the outset that Article 226 EC enables the Commission to institute proceedings for failure to fulfil obligations each time it considers that a Member State has failed to fulfil an obligation under Community law, without its being required to draw distinctions based on the nature or gravity of the infringement, since such proceedings are  based on the objective finding that a Member State has failed to fulfil its obligations under the Treaty or secondary legislation (see Case 301/81 Commission v Belgium [1983] ECR 467, paragraph 8; Case C-209/88 Commission v Italy [1990] ECR I-4313, paragraph 13; Case C-71/97 Commission v Spain [1998] ECR I-5991, paragraph 14, and Case C-333/99 Commission v France [2001] ECR I-1025, paragraphs 32 and 33).
31 The scale of those figures and the reoccurrence of the situation which they describe indicate that the instances of overfishing could only have resulted, first, from the absence of appropriate detailed rules for the utilisation of fishing quotas and, secondly, from failure by the Member State concerned to comply with its monitoring obligations (see Commission v France, cited above, paragraph 35).
36 First, the Court has already held that Article 10(2) of Regulation No 2057/82 and Article 11(2) of Regulation No 2241/87 require the Member States to take binding measures in order provisionally to prohibit all fishing activities even before quotas have been exhausted. It follows from those provisions that Member States are required to take all the necessary measures in time to prevent the quotas in question being exceeded, in order to ensure compliance with the quotas allocated to them for the purpose of conserving fishery resources (see Case C-62/89 Commission v France [1990] ECR I-925, paragraph 17; Case C-52/95 Commission v France [1995] ECR I-4443, paragraphs 29 and 30, and Joined Cases C-418/00 and C-419/00 Commission v France [2002] ECR I-3969, paragraph 58).
38 Secondly, the Court has consistently held that a Member State cannot rely on practical difficulties in order to justify its failure to adopt in time appropriate measures to prohibit fishing. On the contrary, it is required to overcome those difficulties by adopting such measures (see Case C-333/99 Commission v France, cited above, paragraph 44).
62 In the present case, it is unclear whether the United Kingdom notwithstanding the information provided by it in the annex to its rejoinder, was able to inform the Commission of any penal or administrative action which might have been undertaken, although a significant number of cases of illegal fishing were observed during the years in question. The argument put forward by the United Kingdom concerning the need for the Commission to provide specific evidence cannot, therefore, be upheld (Case C-52/95 Commission v France, cited above, paragraph 36).
63 As regards the argument concerning the practical difficulties due to the fact that most of the vessels flying the flag of the United Kingdom which are charged with overfishing were not operating in the territorial waters of that Member State, it should be recalled that, according to settled case-law, a Member State cannot plead provisions, practices or situations in its internal legal system to justify non-compliance with obligations arising from rules of Community law (see Case C-52/91 Commission v Netherlands [1993] ECR I-3069, paragraph 36, and Joined Cases C-418/00 and C-419/00 Commission v France, cited above, paragraph 59). That argument therefore cannot be upheld.