Keywords
Summary

Keywords

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1. Agriculture - Monetary compensatory amounts - Fixing - Derived products - Sum of monetary compensatory amounts for the derived products exceeding the monetary compensatory amount for the basic product - Incorrect choice of price to be taken into consideration - Invalidity

(EEC Treaty, Art. 43(3); Regulation No 974/71 of the Council; Regulation No 2719/75 of the Commission)

2. Preliminary rulings - Assessment of validity - Declaration that a regulation is invalid - Effects - Application by analogy with the second paragraph of Article 174 of the Treaty - Limitation of temporal effect by the Court - Exception in favour of a trader who has brought judicial proceedings or an administrative complaint before the national authorities

(EEC Treaty, second para. of Art. 174 and Art. 177)

Summary

1. In so far as it fixes the monetary compensatory amounts for all the derived products processed from maize within a particular production chain at a level such that their sum is clearly higher than the monetary compensatory amount for the quantity of maize used, and in so far as it fixes the monetary compensatory amounts for maize starch and its derived products on a basis other than that of the intervention price for maize reduced by the production refund on starch, Regulation No 2719/75 fixing the monetary compensatory amounts and certain rates for their application is invalid, as are the regulations amending or replacing it which are vitiated by the same manifest error in calculating the monetary compensatory amounts for the derived products in question.

2. Although a judgment of the Court in proceedings for a preliminary ruling declaring a Community act invalid in principle has retroactive effect, like a judgment annulling an act, it is, however, open to the Court to limit the temporal effect of such a ruling. That is justified by the interpretation of Article 174 of the Treaty, having regard to the necessary consistency between the procedure for a preliminary ruling and the action for annulment, which are two mechanisms provided by the Treaty for reviewing the legality of acts. The possibility of limiting the temporal effect of the invalidity of a Community regulation, whether under Article 173 or Article 177, is a power conferred on the Court by the Treaty in the interest of the uniform application of Community law throughout the Community.

It is for the Court, where for reasons of legal certainty it makes use of the possibility of limiting the effect on past events of a declaration in preliminary ruling proceedings that a Community regulation is invalid, to decide whether an exception to that temporal limitation of the effect of its judgment may be made in favour of the party to the main proceedings which brought the action before the national court against the national measure implementing the regulation, or whether, conversely, a declaration of invalidity applicable only to the future is an adequate remedy even for traders who have taken steps at the proper time to protect their rights.

In the case of a party to the main proceedings who has brought an action before the national court challenging a notice to pay monetary compensatory amounts adopted on the basis of an invalid Community regulation, such a limitation of the effect on past events of a declaration of invalidity in a preliminary ruling would have the consequence that the national court would dismiss the action brought against the notice in question, even though the regulation on the basis of which that notice was adopted had been declared invalid by the Court in the same proceedings. A trader would thereby be deprived of his right to effective judicial protection in the event of a breach of Community law by the institutions, and the practical effect of Article 177 of the Treaty would be jeopardized. Consequently, a trader who before the date of the Court' s judgment has brought an action before a national court challenging that notice is entitled to rely on that invalidity in the main proceedings.

Traders who before the said date have submitted an administrative complaint, seeking reimbursement of the monetary compensatory amounts paid by them on the basis of such a regulation, are also so entitled.