C-136/88

3. The French Government's application is 2. The legal framework: in the provisions of based precisely on the Commission's failure the Act concerning the Conditions of to observe the procedure laid down in Accession of the Kingdom of Spain and the Article 82 of the Act of Accession when Portuguese Republic and the Adjustments to adopting the contested regulation. the Treaties (hereinafter referred to as 'the Act of Accession'), 2the STM is a system of supervision set up between the Community of Ten and Spain to prevent excessive imports of certain agricultural products The applicant claims that Regulation (EEC) which might disturb the markets. The No 530/88 —based on Article 81(3) of the purpose of this mechanism is to ensure an Act of Accession — was adopted in a harmonious and gradual opening up of the manner contrary to Article 155 of the EEC market and the full realization of free Treaty and Articles 81 and 82 of the Act of movement for the products at issue within Accession and that the regulation is void the Community on the expiry of the period for lack of power on the part of the of application of transitional measures Commission, a breach of essential (Article 83(2) of the Act of Accession). procedural requirements, failure to observe the correct procedure and a manifest error of assessment inasmuch as the Commission consulted not the ad hoc Committee, specific and horizontal in structure, as provided for Article 81(3) of the Act of Accession in the Act of Accession, but the provides that, account being taken in Management Committee for Fruit and particular of the situation at the level of the Vegetables, renamed ad hoc STM production and marketing structure of the Committee for the occasion. products in question, a decision may be made in accordance with the procedures set

seen, in the applicant's view, from the way 5. For its part, the Commission, supported in which its internal regulation was adopted. by the Kingdom of Spain, intervening, does not deny that the ad hoc STM Committee is a single, specific committee of a horizontal nature, as can be inferred from its very defi­ nition, the limits of its powers and the It can be seen from the telex of 10 extent to which it is to be consulted. December 1987 giving notice of the meeting However, it denies that the way in which it to be held on 15 December 1987 that the proceeded deprived the consultation of the agenda for the ad hoc Committee included committee of all meaning. an Opinion on a draft internal regulation for the ad hoc Supplementary Trade Mechanism Committee for the Wine Sector', an expression which was then repeated in the Minutes of the meeting. 6. As can be seen from the applicant's arguments, the various submissions put forward in the application are in reality based on a single premiss, namely the failure The French Government concludes that to consult a properly constituted ad hoc since even the internal regulation of the ad committee. The Court should therefore hoc STM Committee was in fact adopted by concentrate its attention on that point. the Management Committee for Wine, renamed ad hoc STM Committee for the occasion, it is clearly contrary to Article 82 of the Act of Accession, which provides for a single, specific committee of a horizontal nature. In the first place, with regard to the way in which the internal regulation of the ad hoc STM Committee was adopted, it should be observed that the terms of the telex The Commission did not even comply with convening the meeting of 15 December the terms of the internal regulation, because 1987 — the meeting at which an opinion on joint meetings of the ad hoc Committee and the draft internal regulation was to be management committees were held on 17 adopted — clearly show that the adoption December 1987 and 8 January 1988 to of the opinion was contained in the agenda consider the draft of the contested regu­ for the ad hoc STM Committee and not the lation, whereas the internal regulation separate agenda for the Management merely provides for the possibility of joint Committee for Wine. meetings of two or more ad hoc committees.

It is true that the agenda speaks of the draft 8. Similarly, the joint meetings of the ad hoc internal regulation of the ad boc STM Committee and the Management Committee for the wine sector. However, the Committees for Seeds and for Fruit and Commission states — without being contra­ Vegetables held on 17 December 1987 and dicted by the applicant — that the error, 8 January 1988 for the purpose of although accidentally repeated in the considering the contested regulation were summary Minutes of the meeting, was not, in my opinion, convened and pointed out by its representatives during the conducted in such a way as to make the meeting and that the nature, function and applicant's theory plausible. scope of the consultation of the ad hoc STM Committee which was to take place was clearly set out, proper reference being made to the powers provided for in Article 82 of the Act of Accession. The telexes in which the Commission informed the Member States of the meetings refer expressly to an 'ad hoc Committee (Article 82 of the Act of Accession)', and the convening of joint meetings of the ad hoc Committee and management committees Moreover, only one internal regulation has was not as such likely to give rise to in fact been adopted and the procedure laid ambiguity as to the nature and specific down therein has been followed at all function of the ad hoc Committee. meetings of the ad hoc Committee, regardless of the product under consideration.

9. In the light of what has been said and However, that criticism does not seem to having regard to the fact that the Member me to have any basis in the relevant States could have no doubt that it was provisions of the Act of Accession, which in specifically a meeting of the ad hoc no way require, either impliedly or, even committee provided for under Article 82 of less, expressly, that possible withdrawals the Act of Accession that had been from the list of products covered by the convened and that they were thus perfectly STM list must be considered together at a free to send to the meeting of that single meeting of the committee. committee different representatives from those sent to the meetings of the management committees, I consider that the It should be observed in that regard that the French Government's criticisms concerning internal regulation of the ad hoc Committee the consultation of an ad hoc STM permits the Member States to request the Committee which was not correctly convening of committee meetings constituted cannot be accepted. (Article 1) and obliges the president of the 10. In reality, it seems to me that, more committee to include in the agenda any than the failure to consult a properly matter of which discussion has been constituted ad hoc STM Committee, the requested in writing by the representative of French Government seeks to criticize the a Member State (Article 2). Those Commission's practice of consulting the provisions give the Member States sufficient committee in question not simultaneously in opportunity to bring before the committee respect of all the products it proposes to any matter which they consider relevant for withdraw from the STM list but specifically the purpose of reaching a decision which is in respect of each individual product, which the result of a sufficiently detailed prevents Member States interested in one consideration, in accordance with the spirit product or another from acting in concert. and the letter of the Act of Accession.