Keywords
Summary

Keywords

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1. Agriculture ° Common organization of the markets ° Milk and milk products ° Additional levy on milk ° Determination of reference quantities exempt from the levy ° Special rules for producers who have adopted a milk production development plan ° Obligation on Member States to award a special reference quantity ° None ° Discretion ° Limits

(Council Regulation No 857/84, Art. 3(1); Council Directive 72/159)

2. Agriculture ° Common organization of the markets ° Milk and milk products ° Additional levy on milk ° Determination of reference quantities exempt from the levy ° Producers who have adopted a milk production development plan ° No right to a special reference quantity in that capacity ° Principle of the protection of legitimate expectations ° Principle of non-discrimination ° Principles of proportionality and legal certainty ° Right to property ° Freedom to pursue a trade or profession ° Breach ° None

(EC Treaty, Art. 40(3); Council Regulation No 857/84, Art. 3(1); Council Directive 72/159)

Summary

1. The first indent of Article 3(1) of Regulation No 857/84, read in the light of the third recital in the preamble thereto, is to be construed as not imposing on Member States an obligation to grant a special reference quantity exempt from the additional levy on milk to producers who had adopted a milk production development plan under Directive 72/159 on the modernization of farms.

However, even though the Member States have a discretion when deciding whether or not to allocate special reference quantities, they are at least obliged, as the first sentence of Article 3 of that regulation makes clear, before taking such a decision, to take into consideration, for the purpose of determining the reference quantities referred to in Article 2, the situation of producers with a development plan.

2. No requirement flowing from the protection afforded by general principles of law, such as protection of legitimate expectations, the prohibition of discrimination, proportionality and legal certainty, or by fundamental rights such as the right to property and the freedom to pursue a trade or profession, imposes on the competent national authority any obligation, under the first indent of Article 3(1) of Regulation No 857/84, to grant special reference quantities exempt from the additional levy on milk to producers who have adopted development plans, even where those plans were approved by the competent authorities.

First, as regards the principle of the protection of legitimate expectations, neither the rules on development plans, nor the terms or purpose of those plans, nor the context in which the operators concerned adopted them indicate that the Community created a situation providing those operators with reasonable grounds to expect that a special reference quantity referred to in the first indent of Article 3(1) would be allocated and that they would therefore be exempted in part from the restrictions established by the additional levy scheme.

Secondly, the principle of equality, which finds specific expression in the prohibition of discrimination laid down in Article 40(3) of the Treaty, does not preclude producers who have adopted a development plan from being granted, like all producers, only a reference quantity reflecting their production in the reference year. Having regard to the purpose of the levy scheme, which is to restore a balance between supply and demand on the market for milk characterized by structural surpluses by limiting milk production to the level of production in the reference year, it is the reference year which is decisive for comparing the situation of the two categories of producers. In relation to that year, the operators concerned cannot claim, regardless of the future production envisaged by them, that their situation differs from that of other producers and enables them to claim a right to the allocation of a special reference quantity.

Thirdly, the failure to allocate special reference quantities does not infringe the principle of proportionality, since the Community legislature and the national legislature did not exercise their discretion under the common agricultural policy wrongly in not granting special reference quantities. The absence of any such obligation cannot be considered incompatible with the purpose of the additional levy scheme.

Finally, those rules, which meet the general interest aim of correcting the surpluses existing on the market for milk, do not affect the actual substance of the right to property and the freedom to pursue a trade or profession. Even though they authorize the national authorities to exercise their discretion in such a way that producers who have adopted development plans may ultimately be prevented from increasing their production, they nevertheless enable those producers to continue to produce milk at the level of their production during the reference year.