Keywords
Summary

Keywords

1. Preliminary rulings - Reference to the Court - Determination of the questions to be referred - Exclusive competence of the national court

(EC Treaty, Art. 177 (now Art. 234 EC)

2. Community law - Principles - Protection of legitimate expectations - Limits - Amendments to rules concerning a common organisation of the market - Alteration of the premium system in the raw tobacco sector - Discretion of the institutions

3. Agriculture - Common organisation of the markets - Raw tobacco - Replacement of the system of processing quotas with a system of production quotas during a production year - Principle of the protection of legitimate expectations - Infringement - None

(Council Regulation No 711/95; Commission Regulation No 1066/95)

Summary

1. Article 177 of the Treaty (now Article 234 EC) establishes direct cooperation between the Court of Justice and the national courts by way of a non-contentious procedure excluding any initiative of the parties who are merely invited to be heard in the course of that procedure. Under Article 177 it is for the national court, and not the parties to the main action, to bring a matter before the Court of Justice. Since the right to determine the questions to be brought before the Court devolves upon the national court alone, the parties may not change the tenor of the questions.

( see para. 29 )

2. Whilst the protection of legitimate expectations is one of the fundamental principles of the Community, economic operators cannot have a legitimate expectation that an existing situation which is capable of being altered by the Community institutions in the exercise of their discretion will be maintained; this is particularly true in an area such as the common organisation of the markets, the object of which entails constant adjustments to meet changes in the economic situation. It follows that economic operators cannot claim a vested right to the maintenance of an advantage which they derive from the establishment of the common organisation of the markets and which they enjoyed at a given time. That is the case as regards the fixing of premiums paid by processing undertakings at the time of delivery of the tobacco by traditional producers, which can be reduced from one year to the next.

( see paras 37, 53 )

3. In the context of the common organisation of the market in raw tobacco, the fact that, in the course of a production year, the processing quota system was replaced by a production quota system by Regulation No 711/95 amending Regulation No 2075/92 on the common organisation of the market in raw tobacco does not amount to an infringement of legitimate expectations or of the principles underlying the common organisation of the market in raw tobacco, since the economic operators concerned had known since 30 July 1992 (the date on which Regulation No 2075/92 was published) that the production quota system would apply to the 1995 harvest and what quantities would be available for the relevant harvest in respect of the varieties grown in Italy and before the planting out of the young plants, which in that Member State takes place towards the end of April.

Nor were the legitimate expectations of the tobacco producers adversely affected by the alterations made by Regulation No 1066/95 laying down detailed rules for the application of Regulation No 2075/92 as regards the raw tobacco quota system for the 1995, 1996 and 1997 harvests to the method of calculating the individual quotas to be allocated to the producers, since those alterations were limited to adapting to the production quota system which was introduced on a permanent basis by Regulation No 711/95 the detailed rules of that method, which continued to be based on the average quantities delivered during the three years preceding the year of the last harvest, broken down by group of varieties, excluding, however, the 1992 harvest.

( see paras 42, 45, 47, 49, 51 )