Koninklijke Coöperatie Cosun UA v Commission of the European Communities.
Date: 2006-10-26
38. First, the appellant does not dispute the Court of First Instance’s analysis that a charge due under Article 3 of Regulation No 2670/81 does not constitute a customs duty on imports or exports or a charge having equivalent effect.
54. Under Article 225 EC, the first paragraph of Article 58 of the Statute of the Court of Justice and Article 112(1), first subparagraph, (c) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, an appeal must indicate precisely the contested elements of the judgment which the appellant seeks to have set aside and also the legal arguments specifically advanced in support of the appeal. That requirement is not satisfied by an appeal which, without even including an argument specifically identifying the error of law allegedly vitiating the judgment under appeal, merely repeats or reproduces verbatim the pleas in law and arguments previously submitted to the Court of First Instance (see, inter alia, Case C‑352/98 P Bergaderm and Goupil  v Commission  [2000] ECR I-5291, paragraphs 34 and 35, and Case C‑208/03 P Le Pen  v Parliament  [2005] ECR I‑6051, paragraph 39).
55. However, provided that the appellant challenges the interpretation or application of Community law by the Court of First Instance, the points of law examined at first instance may be discussed again in the course of an appeal. Indeed, if an appellant could not thus base his appeal on pleas in law and arguments already relied on before the Court of First Instance, an appeal would be deprived of part of its purpose (see, inter alia, Case C‑41/00 P Interporc  v Commission  [2003] ECR I‑2125, paragraph 17, and Le Pen  v Parliament , paragraph 40).
59. The measures thereby put in place ultimately aim to stabilise the Community market in sugar and, consequently, to ensure that the necessary guarantees in respect of the employment and standard of living of Community producers and the availability of sugar supplies to all consumers are maintained.
62. As the Court rightly pointed out in paragraphs 43 and 44 of the judgment under appeal, according to the 15th recital in the preamble to the basic regulation, production quotas constitute a means of guaranteeing producers Community prices and an outlet for their production. In addition, regarding, more specifically, the charge due under Article 3 of Regulation No 2670/81, that provision is primarily deterrent in nature and is intended to ensure that the prohibition on the disposing of C sugar – produced in excess of the quotas – on the internal market is complied with.
96. According to settled case-law, to allow a party to put forward for the first time before the Court of Justice a plea in law which it has not raised before the Court of First Instance would be to allow it to bring before the Court, whose jurisdiction in appeals is limited, a case of wider ambit than that which came before the Court of First Instance. In an appeal the Court’s jurisdiction is confined to review of the findings of law on the pleas argued before the Court of First Instance (see, inter alia, Joined Cases C‑186/02 P and C‑188/02 P Romondín and Others  v Commission [2004] ECR I‑10653, paragraph 60).