larimo/cjeu-paragraph-retrieval huggingface dataset:
Commission of the European Communities v SNUA Srl.
Date: 1999-04-27
18 Where proceedings are brought before it pursuant to an arbitration clause, the Court must resolve the dispute on the basis of the national law applicable to the contract (see, in particular, Case 426/85 Commission v Zoubek [1986] ECR 4057, paragraph 4). In this case, as stated at paragraph 6 of this judgment, the applicable national law is Italian law.
34 The Commission challenges SNUA's contention that it was not at fault and claims that due care under the contract should at least have prompted SNUA to advise the Commission that there was a risk of non-performance.
Mövenpick Deutschland GmbH für das Gastgewerbe v Hauptzollamt Bremen.
Date: 1999-04-28
18 It is settled case-law that, in the interests of legal certainty and for ease of verification, the decisive criterion for the classification of goods for customs purposes is in general to be sought in their objective characteristics and properties as defined in the wording of the relevant heading of the CN.  There are also explanatory notes drawn up, as regards the CN, by the Commission and, as regards the Harmonised Commodity Description and Coding System, by the Customs Cooperation Council, which may be an important aid to the interpretation of the scope of the various tariff headings but do not have legally binding force (see, in particular, Case C-328/97 Glob-Sped v Hauptzollamt Lörrach [1998] ECR I-8357, paragraph 26, and Case C-280/97 Rose Elektrotechnik v Oberfinanzdirektion Köln [1999] ECR I-689, paragraph 16).
22 It is also clear from the report of the expert appointed by the national court that the treatment applied to the goods in issue in the main proceedings did not lead, when the goods were warmed up by raising the storage temperature, to any changes characteristic of freezing.  In the circumstances in the main proceedings there were not, therefore, any `irreversible changes ... in particular to the structure of the flesh', whose existence had been noted by the Court in Case 120/75 Riemer v Hauptzollamt Lübeck-West [1976] ECR 1003, paragraph 4, in which the Court concluded that after thawing goods cannot be classified as fresh goods.
Peter Luksch v Hauptzollamt Weiden.
Date: 1999-04-28
18 In this connection, it should be borne in mind that Article 3(2) of Regulation No 2707/72 states that protective measures in the fruit and vegetables sector may only be taken `in so far, and for as long, as they are strictly necessary.' It follows that, as the Court already held in Dinter, cited above, at paragraph 19, a case concerning the payment of a countervailing charge for failure to comply with the minimum import price for Morello cherries, when the objective of protecting the Community market pursued by the protective measures is attained, the levying of a countervailing charge is unlawful. The levying of such a charge must be held to be even more unjustified when the functioning of the Community market cannot be affected by a low price which results from circumstances unconnected with the origin of the goods in question.
Kingdom of Spain v Commission of the European Communities.
Date: 1999-04-29
21 Consequently, Article 118 of the Treaty does not encroach upon the Member States' powers in the social field in so far as the latter is not covered by other provisions of the Treaty (Joined Cases 281/85, 283/85 to 285/85 and 287/85 Germany, France, Netherlands, Denmark and United Kingdom v Commission [1987] ECR 3203, paragraph 14).
23 The Court has, moreover, already held elsewhere that the social character of State aid is not sufficient to exclude it outright from being categorised as aid for the purposes of Article 92 of the Treaty (Case C-241/94 France v Commission [1996] ECR I-4551, paragraph 21).
41 The Court has held in this regard that, in order to determine whether a State measure constitutes aid for the purposes of Article 92 of the Treaty, it is necessary to establish whether the recipient undertaking receives an economic advantage which it would not have obtained under normal market conditions (Case C-39/94 SFEI and Others [1996] ECR I-3547, paragraph 60).
42 It has also held that the same is true of loans at reduced rates of interest granted by public authorities to an undertaking which enable the latter to avoid having to bear costs which would normally have had to be met out of the undertaking's own financial resources, thereby preventing market forces from having their normal effect (Case C-301/87 France v Commission [1990] ECR I-307, paragraph 41).
46 Next, it should be noted that the State did not act as a public investor whose conduct must be compared to the conduct of a private investor laying out capital with a view to realising a profit in the relatively short term (Case C-42/93 Spain v Commission [1994] ECR I-4175, paragraph 14). On the assumption that, as the Commission acknowledges, the fact that the sums advanced by Fogasa to pay the wages of Tubacex's employees are not State aid has been established, it follows that in restructuring the conditions for repayment of those advances, Fogasa must be held to have acted as a public creditor which, like a private creditor, seeks to recover sums due to it and which, to that end, concludes agreements with the debtor, under which the accumulated debts are to be rescheduled or paid by instalments in order to facilitate their repayment.
Norbury Developments Ltd v Commissioners of Customs & Excise.
Date: 1999-04-29
18 Next, Norbury maintains that the transitional exemption provided for by Article 28(3)(b) of the Sixth Directive can no longer be applied, since the scheme of taxation of supplies of building land has been fundamentally altered by the enactment of the Finance Act 1989, under which certain such supplies are no longer exempt.  In that regard, it relies in particular on Case C-74/91 Commission v Germany [1992] ECR I-5437.
19 It is true that in paragraph 17 of its judgment in Commission v Germany, cited above, the Court held that the maintenance by a Member State of partial exemptions not expressly provided for by the transitional provisions contained in Article 28(3) of the Sixth Directive was not permissible, and that it ran counter to the principle of legal certainty.  However, it should be borne in mind that that judgment related to the incorrect transposition by a Member State of Article 26 of the Sixth Directive, concerning the complex scheme specifically governing the activities of travel agents and, in particular, the applicability of the transitional provisions laid down in points 17 and 27 of Annex F.  Consequently, the factual and legal circumstances in Commission v Germany were entirely different from those in point in the main proceedings in the present case, and Norbury cannot therefore rely on the judgment in that case to support its arguments.
20 In the main proceedings, the United Kingdom is entitled, pursuant to Article 28(3)(b) of the Sixth Directive, read in conjunction with point 16 of Annex F thereto, to continue to exempt supplies of land, save as regards the various exceptions to the maintenance of the exemption listed in Group 1 of Schedule 5 to the Finance Act 1972, as supplemented by Group 1 of Schedule 6 to the 1983 Act, in the version thereof resulting from the Finance Act 1989. As the national court has found, those amendments have not widened the scope of the exemption; on the contrary, they have reduced it.  Consequently, they were not adopted in disregard of the wording of Article 28(3)(b).  Whilst that provision precludes the introduction of new exemptions or the extension of the scope of existing exemptions following the entry into force of the Sixth Directive, it does not prevent a reduction of those exemptions, since their abolition constitutes the objective pursued by Article 28(4) of the Sixth Directive.
21 It would be contrary to that objective to construe Article 28(3)(b) of the Sixth Directive narrowly, to the effect that a Member State may maintain an existing exemption but may not abolish it, even only partially, without thereby abolishing all the other exemptions. Moreover, as the Advocate General observes in point 31 of his Opinion, such an interpretation would have adverse effects for the uniform application of the Sixth Directive. A Member State might find itself compelled to maintain all the exemptions existing at the date of adoption of the Sixth Directive, even if it regarded it as possible, appropriate and desirable progressively to implement the system laid down in the directive in the sphere under consideration.
Eric Coursier v Fortis Bank and Martine Coursier, née Bellami.
Date: 1999-04-29
23 The rules on enforcement of decisions are contained in Section 2 of Title III (Articles 31 to 45) of the Brussels Convention.  It is clear from the first paragraph of Article 31, which forms part of those rules, that the enforceability of a decision in the State of origin is a precondition for its enforcement in the State in which enforcement is sought.
25 The Brussels Convention is intended to facilitate the free movement of judgments by establishing a simple and rapid procedure in the Contracting State where enforcement of a foreign decision is applied for.  That enforcement procedure constitutes an autonomous and complete system (see to that effect Case 148/84 Deutsche Genossenschaftsbank v Brasserie du Pêcheur [1985] ECR 1981, paragraph 17, and Case C-172/91 Sonntag v Waidmann [1993] ECR I-1963, paragraphs 32 and 33).
28 Thus, the Court has held that the Brussels Convention merely regulates the procedure for obtaining an order for the enforcement of foreign enforceable instruments and does not deal with execution itself, which continues to be governed by the domestic law of the court in which execution is sought (see Deutsche Genossenschaftsbank, cited above, paragraph 18, and Case 145/86 Hoffmann v Krieg [1988] ECR 645, paragraph 27).
Consorzio fra i Caseifici dell'Altopiano di Asiago v Regione Veneto.
Date: 1999-04-29
18 It is appropriate to say something at the outset about the general structure of the additional levy scheme, which - initially by virtue of Article 5c(1) and (2) of Council Regulation (EEC) No 804/68 of 27 June 1968 on the common organisation of the market in milk and milk products (OJ, English Special Edition 1968 (I), p. 176), inserted by Regulation No 856/84 and, since 1993, under Article 1 of Regulation No 3950/92 - distinguishes between reference quantities for milk sold directly for consumption and those for milk delivered to purchasers (Case C-196/94 Schiltz-Thilmann v Ministre de l'Agriculture [1995] ECR I-3991, paragraph 6).
19 Furthermore, pursuant to Article 2(1) of Regulation No 3950/92, read in conjunction with the eighth recital in the preamble to that regulation, it is the producer who owes any additional levy due on all milk that is marketed, that is to say, in accordance with Article 1 of Regulation No 536/93, on quantities of milk which leave any holding and which exceed the reference quantity for direct sales or deliveries. That distinction is taken up again in Article 9(c) of Regulation No 3950/92 where it is used in the definition of a producer as a party selling milk or milk products directly to the consumer or supplying a purchaser or doing both together (Case C-341/89 Ballmann v Hauptzollamt Osnabrück [1991] ECR I-25, paragraph 12).
20 As to the first hypothesis, direct sales to consumers, the Court held at paragraph 13 of its judgment in Case C-285/93 Dominikanerinnen-Kloster Altenhohenau v Hauptzollamt Rosenheim [1995] ECR I-4069, which concerned Article 12(h) in conjunction with Article 12(c) of Regulation No 857/84, which has since been repealed but the wording of which was identical, in so far as is relevant here, to that of Article 9(h) and (c) of Regulation No 3950/92, that there is a direct sale to consumers whenever milk is sold by a producer to a third party without going through an undertaking treating or processing it.
27 As for the fact that the Italian authorities approved the Consortium as a purchaser within the meaning of Article 7(1)(a) of Regulation No 536/93, it is established case-law that it is for the national court to ascertain the facts which have given rise to the dispute and to establish the consequences which they have for the judgment which it is required to deliver on the basis of the facts which this Court puts before it concerning the meaning of purchaser (Case C-181/96 Wilkens [1999] ECR I-399, paragraphs 33 and 34).
32 The answer to the second question is therefore that Article 2(2) of Regulation No 3950/92 is to be understood as meaning that, whilst purchasers are entitled to deduct from the price of milk paid to a producer the amount owed by that producer by way of additional levy, the provision does not impose on them any obligation in that regard.
Pfeiffer Großhandel GmbH v Löwa Warenhandel GmbH.
Date: 1999-05-11
18 It is important to bear in mind that the freedom of establishment provided for in Article 52 of the Treaty, read together with Article 58 thereof (now Article 48 EC), is conferred both on natural persons who are nationals of a Member State of the Community and on legal persons within the meaning of Article 58 of the Treaty.  Subject to the exceptions and conditions specified, it includes the right to take up and pursue all types of self-employed activity in the territory of any other Member State, to set up and manage undertakings, and to set up agencies, branches or subsidiaries.
19 National measures adopted in the Member State where companies from other Member States are established constitute a restriction on the right of establishment if they are liable to place those companies in a less favourable factual or legal situation than companies from the State of establishment (see Case C-70/95 Sodemare and Others [1997] ECR I-3395, paragraph 33).  Such a restriction, even if applied in a non-discriminatory manner, is contrary to Article 52 of the Treaty, read together with Article 58 thereof, unless it is justified by overriding requirements in the general interest, and is suitable for securing the attainment of the objective pursued and does not go beyond what is necessary for that purpose (see Case C-55/94 Gebhard [1995] ECR I-4165, paragraph 37).
21 However, where such a restriction on the right of establishment is brought about by a provision of national law whose primary aim is to safeguard trade names against the risk of confusion, it is justified by overriding requirements in the  general interest pertaining to the protection of industrial and commercial property (see, to that effect, Case 62/79 Coditel and Others [1980] ECR 881, paragraph 15).
22 No exception can be taken under Community law to the protection granted by a national law against the risk of confusion, since it corresponds to the specific subject-matter of a trade name, that is to say, protection of the proprietor of the trade name against that risk (see, to the same effect, on the subject of trade marks, Case C-317/91 Deutsche Renault [1993] ECR I-6227, paragraph 37).
Angestelltenbetriebsrat der Wiener Gebietskrankenkasse v Wiener Gebietskrankenkasse.
Date: 1999-05-11
15 It should be noted at the outset that the Court has consistently held that discrimination involves the application of different rules to comparable situations or the application of the same rule to different situations (see, in particular, Case C-342/93 Gillespie and Others v Northern Health and Social Services Board and Others [1996] ECR I-475, paragraph 16).
16 As for the argument relied on by the Staff Committee, suffice it to note that in Enderby the Court did not rule on whether the functions performed by members of the different professions in question were of equal value. It merely answered the questions referred to it on the basis of the assumption that those functions were of equal value, without concerning itself with the validity of that assumption (Enderby, paragraphs 11 and 12).
17 In order to determine whether the work being done by different persons is the same, it is necessary to ascertain whether, taking account of a number of factors such as the nature of the work, the training requirements and the working conditions, those persons can be considered to be in a comparable situation (see, to that effect, Case C-400/93 Royal Copenhagen [1995] ECR I-1275, paragraphs 32 and 33).
18 Thus, where seemingly identical tasks are performed by different groups of persons who do not have the same training or professional qualifications for the practice of their profession, it is necessary to ascertain whether, taking into account the nature of the tasks that may be assigned to each group respectively, the training requirements for performance of those tasks and the working conditions under which they are performed, the different groups in fact do the same work within the meaning of Article 119 of the Treaty.
19 As Advocate General Cosmas stated at point 32(c) of his Opinion, professional training is not merely one of the factors that may be an objective justification for giving different pay for doing the same work (see, to that effect, Case 109/88 Handels- og Kontorfunktionærernes Forbund i Danmark v Dansk Arbejdsgiverforening, `Danfoss' [1989] ECR 3199, paragraph 23); it is also one of the possible criteria for determining whether or not the same work is being performed.
23 The answer to the first question must therefore be that the term `the same work' does not apply, for the purposes of Article 119 of the EC Treaty or the Directive, where the same activities are performed over a considerable length of time by persons the basis of whose qualification to exercise their profession is different.
The remaining questions
Wilfried Monsees v Unabhängiger Verwaltungssenat für Kärnten.
Date: 1999-05-11
24 Before considering whether there is a justification based on the protection of animals under Article 36 of the Treaty, it is first necessary to establish whether harmonising directives applied in this area.  While Article 36 allows the maintenance of restrictions on the free movement of goods, justified on grounds of the protection of the health and life of animals, which constitutes a fundamental requirement recognised by Community law, recourse to Article 36 is no longer possible where Community directives provide for harmonisation of the measures necessary to achieve the specific objective which would be furthered by reliance upon this provision (Case C-5/94 The Queen v MAFF ex parte Hedley Lomas [1996] ECR I-2553, paragraph 18).
26 Directive 95/29, on the other hand, contains a number of specific provisions regarding maximum journey times, conditions of transport, animals' feeding and watering intervals, minimum rest periods and loading densities.
27 However, while that directive was adopted before the facts of the main proceedings arose, the time-limit for its transposition had still not expired as the Member States had, in principle, until 31 December 1996 to comply with it.  Until that date, therefore, a Member State was entitled to rely on Article 36 of the Treaty in order to retain restrictions on the free movement of goods justified on grounds of the protection of health and life of animals.
28 It must accordingly be determined whether the national legislation was suitable for achieving the objective of protecting the health of animals and whether it went beyond what was necessary to achieve it (see, to that effect, Case C-84/94 United Kingdom v Council [1996] ECR I-5755, paragraph 57).
Criminal proceedings against Adrianus Albers (C-425/97), Martinus van den Berkmortel (C-426/97) and Leon Nuchelmans (C-427/97).
Date: 1999-05-11
9 In its judgment in Case C-194/94 CIA Security International [1996] ECR I-2201, paragraph 54 (hereinafter `CIA Security'), the Court interpreted Directive 83/189 as meaning that breach of the obligation to notify imposed by Articles 8 and 9 renders the technical regulations concerned inapplicable, so that they are unenforceable against individuals. It therefore ruled that individuals may rely on Articles 8 and 9 of Directive 83/189 before the national court which must decline to apply a national technical regulation which has not been notified in accordance with the directive.
23 It follows that, in issuing the prohibition on administering Clenbuterol to fattening cattle over 14 weeks old and holding, having in stock, buying or selling fattening cattle over 14 weeks old to which that substance has been administered, the Netherlands Government honoured its obligations under Directive 86/469.
Italian Republic v Commission of the European Communities.
Date: 1999-05-19
15 The Court has consistently held that the concept of aid embraces not only positive benefits, such as subsidies, but also measures which, in various forms, mitigate the charges which are normally included in the budget of an undertaking and which, therefore, without being subsidies in the strict sense of the word, are similar in character and have the same effect (Case 30/59 De Gezamenlijke Steenkolenmijnen in Limburg v High Authority [1961] ECR 1, 19, and Case C-200/97 Ecotrade v AFS [1998] ECR I-7907, paragraph 34).
16 A measure whereby the public authorities grant to certain undertakings a tax exemption which, although not involving a transfer of State resources, places the persons to whom the exemption applies in a more favourable financial position than other taxpayers constitutes State aid within the meaning of Article 92(1) of the Treaty (Case C-387/92 Banco Exterior de España v Ayuntamiento de Valencia [1994] ECR I-877, paragraph 14).
17 In the circumstances, it suffices to note that the national legislation at issue in the contested decision was intended to reduce the tax burden on road hauliers operating for hire or reward.  Since that legislation meets the condition that it should relate to specific undertakings, which is one of the defining features of State aid (see Ecotrade, paragraph 40), no purpose would be served by determining whether other tax rules from which the sector concerned also benefited would have escaped classification as aid within the meaning of Article 92 of the Treaty.
21 It is clear from the Court's case-law that the fact that a Member State seeks to approximate, by unilateral measures, the conditions of competition in a particular sector of the economy to those prevailing in other Member States cannot deprive the measures in question of their character as aid (see to that effect Joined Cases 6/69 and 11/69 Commission v France [1969] ECR 523, paragraph 21). It therefore falls to be considered whether the tax credit has adverse effects on the recipients' competitors, namely road hauliers established in other Member States, whether operating on their own account or for hire or reward.
34 With regard to the former argument, suffice it to note that, since the Italian Government has made no attempt to recover the tax credit in question, implementation of the decision to effect recovery cannot be shown to be impossible (Case C-280/95 Commission v Italy [1998] ECR I-259, paragraph 15).
Commission of the European Communities v French Republic.
Date: 1999-05-19
23 Article 2(5) of the Directive expressly provides that the sum to be paid in accordance with Article 2(1)(c) must be set at a level high enough to dissuade the contracting entity from committing or persisting in an infringement, but does not indicate whether the amount is to be fixed by the legislature or by the competent court.
37 So far as concerns the publicity given to the Directive by the French Government, it need merely be recalled that, according to established case-law, the provisions of directives must be implemented with unquestionable binding force, and the specificity, precision and clarity necessary to satisfy the requirements of legal certainty (Case C-59/89 Commission v Germany [1991] ECR I-2607, paragraph 24).