Keywords
Summary

Keywords

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1 . Measures adopted by the institutions - Statement of reasons - Obligation - Scope - Decision following, but going further than, a consistent practice

( EEC Treaty, Art . 190 )

2 . Agriculture - Common organization of the markets - Milk and milk products - Aid for butter and concentrated butter for use in the manufacture of pastry products, ice-cream and other foodstuffs - Progressive reduction of the maximum amount of aid in response to market developments - Justified management decision

( Commission Regulation No 570/88 )

3 . Community law - Principles - Protection of legitimate expectations - Limits - Modification of rules governing a common organization of the market - Discretionary power of Community institutions

Summary

1 . Although the reasons on which a decision following a well-established line of decisions is based may be given in a summary manner, for example by a reference to those decisions, the Community authority must give an explicit account of its reasoning if the decision goes appreciably further than the previous decisions . It is not necessary, however, for details of all relevant factual and legal aspects to be given . The question whether the statement of the grounds for a decision meets the requirements of Article 190 of the Treaty must be assessed with regard not only to its wording but also to its context and to all the legal rules governing the matter in question . Moreover, the degree of precision of the statement of the reasons for a decision must be weighed against practical realities and the time and technical facilities available for making the decision .

2 . In view of the objective of Regulation No 570/88 on the sale of butter at reduced prices and the granting of aid for butter and concentrated butter for use in the manufacture of pastry products, ice-cream and other foodstuffs, which was to absorb stocks of butter which could not be disposed of in the normal way, the Commission was perfectly entitled, once it considered that the drop in the level of butter stocks made it less necessary to use subsidies to encourage purchases of market butter, to reduce progressively the maximum amount of aid which could be granted under that regulation .

3 . Traders cannot have a legitimate expectation that an existing situation which is capable of being altered by the Community institutions in the exercise of their discretionary power will be maintained . This is particularly true in an area such as the common organization of the markets whose purpose involves constant adjustments to meet changes in the economic situation . It follows that traders cannot claim a vested right to the maintenance of an advantage which they derive from the establishment of the common organization of the markets and which they enjoyed at a given time .

This applies a fortiori when the advantage in question is derived from exceptional arrangements which depart from the normal rules of the market and which the Commission has an obligation to adjust as soon as the state of the market has returned to normal, and when a curtailment of that advantage is foreseeable by a prudent and well-informed trader .