Etablissements Armand Mondiet SA v Armement Islais SARL.
Date: 1993-11-24
11 Armement Islais claims that Article 1(8) of Regulation No 345/92 is unlawful, inasmuch as the Community has no competence to adopt technical measures for the conservation of fishery resources in maritime waters that are not under the sovereignty or jurisdiction of the Member States.
12 For the purpose of answering Question 1.1., it should be noted that the Court has consistently held that, with regard to the high seas, the Community has the same rule-making authority in matters within its jurisdiction as that conferred under international law on the State whose flag the vessel is flying or in which it is registered (Joined Cases 3/76, 4/76 and 6/76 Kramer [1976] ECR 1279, Case 61/77 Commission v Ireland [1978] ECR 417, Case C-258/89 Commission v Spain [1991] ECR I-3977 and Case C-286/90 Poulsen and Diva Navigation [1992] ECR I-6019).
13 As regards fishing, that authority is established in the Geneva Convention of 29 April 1958 on Fishing and the Conservation of the Living Resources of the High Seas (United Nations Treaty Series, volume 559, p. 286), which consolidates the general rules on this subject enshrined in international customary law, and in the United Nations Convention of 10 December 1982 on the Law of the Sea (Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea ° United Nations Documents, volume XVII, 1984, Doc.A/Conf.62/122 and corr., pp. 157-231, hereinafter the "United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea"). That Convention has not yet come into force but many of its provisions are regarded as embodying the present state of customary international maritime law.
14 Article 6 of the Geneva Convention of 29 April 1958 recognizes the interests of coastal States in the living resources in any area of the high seas adjacent to their territorial sea. In addition, Articles 117 and 118 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea impose a duty on all members of the international community to cooperate in the conservation and management of the living resources of the high seas (Poulsen and Diva Navigation, cited above, paragraph 11).
15 It follows from the foregoing considerations that the Community has competence to adopt, for vessels flying the flag of a Member State or registered in a Member State, measures for the conservation of the fishery resources of the high seas.
16 As the answer to Question 1.1. must therefore be in the affirmative, there is no need to rule on Question 1.2. referred by the national court, concerning the Council' s competence to prohibit vessels from having driftnets on board.
The legal basis of Regulation No 345/92 (Questions 4.1., 4.2. and 5.)
24 It must therefore be concluded that the limitation on the use of driftnets, imposed by the regulation at issue, was adopted primarily in order to ensure the conservation and rational exploitation of fishery resources and to limit the fishing effort. Those rules are therefore an integral part of the common agricultural policy, whose objectives under Article 39 of the Treaty include ensuring the rational development of production and assuring the availability of supplies, and could therefore be validly adopted by the Council solely on the basis of the provisions governing the common fisheries policy.
25 That conclusion is not affected either by the fact that the 16th recital in the preamble to Regulation No 345/92 cites the Berne Convention on the conservation of European wildlife and natural habitats (OJ 1982 L 38, p. 3) and the 19th recital refers to "the concern expressed by ecological organizations", or by the fact that the 18th recital in the preamble to the regulation at issue mentions that the Community legislature is concerned to protect species that are caught with driftnets as by-catches.
26 The Court has consistently held (see, in particular, its judgment in Case C-62/88 Greece v Council [1990] ECR I-1527, paragraph 19) that Articles 130r and 130s of the Treaty are intended to confer powers on the Community to undertake specific action on environmental matters. However, those articles leave intact the powers held by the Community under other provisions of the Treaty, even if the measures to be taken under the latter provisions pursue at the same time one of the objectives of environmental protection.
27 That interpretation is confirmed by the second sentence of Article 130r(2), pursuant to which environmental protection requirements are to be a component of the Community' s other policies. That provision, which expresses the principle that all Community measures must satisfy the requirements of environmental protection, implies that a Community measure cannot be part of Community action on environmental matters merely because it takes account of those requirements (Greece v Council, cited above, paragraph 20, C-300/89 Commission v Council [1991] ECR I-2867, paragraph 22).
31 It follows from the very wording of that provision that the measures for the conservation of fishery resources need not be completely consistent with the scientific advice and the absence of such advice or the fact that it is inconclusive cannot prevent the Council from adopting such measures as it deems necessary for achieving the objectives of the common fisheries policy.
32 As regards the Council' s duty to take scientific data into account, the Court has already ruled that judicial review must, having regard to the discretionary power conferred on the Council in the implementation of the common agricultural policy, be limited to examining whether the measure in question is vitiated by a manifest error or misuse of powers, or whether the authority in question has manifestly exceeded the limits of its discretion (Case C-331/88 Fedesa [1990] ECR I-4023, paragraph 8).
51 As regards the other objectives of the common fisheries policy, suffice it to say that the Court has already ruled that, in pursuing the various objectives of the common agricultural policy set out in Article 39 of the Treaty, the Community institutions must constantly reconcile any conflicts between these objectives taken individually and, where necessary, allow any one of them temporary priority in order to satisfy the demands of the economic factors or conditions in view of which their decisions are made (Case 29/77 Roquette [1977] ECR 1835, paragraph 30).