Keywords
Summary

Keywords

1. Appeals — Pleas in law — Erroneous appraisal of evidence properly adduced — Inadmissible except in cases of distortion — Obligation on the Court of First Instance to state reasons for its appraisal of the evidence — Scope

(Art. 225 EC; Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 58, first para.; Council Regulation No 2377/90)

2. Non-contractual liability — Conditions — Sufficiently serious breach of Community law — Discretion of the institution when adopting a measure — Need to take that discretion into account in examining liability

(Art. 288, second para., EC)

3. Agriculture — Uniform legislation — Maximum limits on residues of veterinary medicinal products in foodstuffs of animal origin — Procedure for fixing limits — Regulation No 2377/90 — Temporary inaction of the Commission in fixing maximum limits for progesterone residues — Sufficiently serious breach of Community law — None

(Art. 288, second para., EC; Council Regulation No 2377/90)

Summary

1. While it is for the Court of First Instance alone to assess the value to be attached to the items of evidence adduced before it, and while it cannot be required to give express reasons for its assessment of the value of each piece of evidence presented to it, in particular where it considers that evidence to be unimportant or irrelevant to the outcome of the dispute, the Court of First Instance is none the less obliged to provide reasons which will allow the Court to exercise its judicial review. Those reasons must make it possible for the Court to review any distortion of the evidence submitted to the Court of First Instance.

In its judgment declaring the Community to be liable following the failure of the Commission to propose a draft regulation fixing maximum residue levels (MRLs) for progesterone before 25 July 2001, the Court of First Instance, by referring only to the opinion of the Committee on Veterinary Medicinal Products recommending that progesterone be included in Annex II to Regulation No 2377/90 laying down a Community procedure for the establishment of maximum residue limits of veterinary medicinal products in foodstuffs of animal origin, without explaining why the Commission was obliged to follow that opinion, in disregard of the differing opinions from other sources, did not allow the Court to identify the link which the Court of First Instance established between the opinion of that committee and the consequences in law which it derived from that opinion. It follows that the Court of First Instance failed to provide adequate reasoning for its judgment on that point.

(see paras 50, 53)

2. Community law confers a right to reparation where three conditions are met: the rule of law infringed must be intended to confer rights on individuals, the breach must be sufficiently serious, and there must be a direct causal link between the breach of the obligation devolving on the institution and the damage sustained by the injured parties.

With regard to the second condition, the decisive test for determining whether a breach of Community law is sufficiently serious is whether the Community institution concerned manifestly and gravely disregarded the limits on its discretion. Where that institution has only a considerably reduced, or even no, discretion, the mere infringement of Community law may be sufficient to establish the existence of a sufficiently serious breach. The determining factor in deciding whether there has been such an infringement is therefore the discretion which was available to the institution concerned.

The Court of First Instance therefore errs in law if it takes the view, without having established the scope of the discretion enjoyed by the Commission, that the Commission’s inaction constitutes a clear and serious breach of Community law giving rise to liability on the part of the Community.

(see paras 63-66, 69)

3. In delicate and controversial cases, the Commission must have a sufficiently broad discretion and enough time to submit for re-examination the scientific questions which determine its decision.

Thus, in not submitting a draft regulation on the fixing of maximum residue limits (MRLs) for progesterone prior to 25 July 2001, pursuant to Regulation No 2377/90 laying down a Community procedure for the establishment of maximum residue limits of veterinary medicinal products in foodstuffs of animal origin, the Commission did not breach Community law in a sufficiently serious way as to give rise to liability on the part of the Community.

Although an application to have an MRL established for progesterone had been before it since 1993, the Commission found itself facing a situation of continuing scientific uncertainty characterised by divergences between scientific opinions. It was for that reason unable to adopt its preliminary position on the maintenance of the use of progesterone for therapeutic or zootechnical purposes until 2000. It was unable to submit that draft measure without taking that position, which constituted a stage which necessarily had to precede the taking of a position on the establishment of an MRL for that substance, since an MRL may be established for a pharmacologically active substance only if that substance is intended to be placed on the market.

(see paras 75, 82, 87, 93)