Opinion of Mr advocate-general Roemer

Mr President,

Members of the Court,

Although the facts of the present case are different from those of the case which was referred by the President of the Tribunale di Torino, on which the Court gave a ruling in its judgment of 14 December 1971 in Case 43/71 (Politi Sas. v Ministry for Finance of the Italian Republic, the same legal problems are raised in the present case. This means that, in common with the parties who submitted oral observations, I can be fairly brief in giving my opinion.

As the Court will be aware, the Marimex undertaking, Milan, imported into Italy during the years 1966, 1968 and 1969 beef and veal from Member States of the EEC and from third countries.

When these goods were imported the italian authorities demanded payment of a statistics duty and a duty for administrative services.

However, the Marimex undertaking takes the view that the imposition of these charges is in conflict in the first place with the provisions of Article 12 of Regulation No 14/64 of 5 February 1964 (JO 1964, p. 562) on the progressive establishment of a common organization of the market in beef and veal and, secondly, with the provisions of Articles 20 and 22 of Regulation No 805/68 of 27 June 1968 (JO English Special Edition 1968 (1) p. 187) on the common organization of the market in beef and veal.

As the Court is aware, the provisions of these regulations prohibit the levying by the Member States of any charge having effect equivalent to a customs duty after the coming force of the system of levies; in fact, both Regulation No 14/64 and Regulation No 805/68 declare anything in the nature of a charge or quantitative restriction to be incompatible with the implementation of those regulations.

For that reason, in order to assert its rights under the abovementioned provisions of Community law, the Marimex undertaking commenced the proceedings known as procedimento d'ingiunzione against the Italian State provided for under Article 633 et seq. of the Italian code of civil procedure.

On the basis of an application for the issue of a decreto d'ingiunzione, the President of the Tribunale di Torino, who was not then aware of the judgment of the Court of 14 December 1971 in the Politi case, ruled that it was within his jurisdiction and declared that the application raised a number of questions requiring a preliminary ruling on the interpretation of the provisions of the Community regulations relied upon and therefore referred to the Court under Article 177 the questions which it is now called upon to resolve.

Turning now to the examination of these questions, I must first make it clear that, as reaffirmed in the judgment in the Politi case, the Court has jurisdiction to decide these questions. Even the representative of the Italian Government did not feel able to repeat in his oral submissions the objections which he lodged on this point in his written observations, not being at that time aware of the judgment of the Court in the Politi case even if he was perhaps familiar with the opinion of Mr Advocate-General Dutheillet de Lamothe.

Five issues lie at the heart of the questions referred for a preliminary ruling:

1. I shall make no more than a brief comment on the first of these issues; I need only refer to the judgment in the Politi case and apply the findings of the Court to imports of beef and veal, because it is clear that it makes no difference that we are dealing with beef and veal and not with pig meat.

2. Charges such as the statistics duty and the duty for administrative services levied in Italy constitute charges having equivalent effect within the meaning given to this concept by the agricultural regulations. The Court stated this in paragraph No 7 its judgment of 14 December 1971. However, as the Court did not repeat this statement in the operative part of the judgment in the Politi case, I imagine that it will follow the same course in the present case.

3. As regards the third issue, it seems to be beyond dispute that the provisions of the regulations on the common organization of the market to which reference has been made and which expressly provide for the abolition of charges having equivalent effect produce direct effect and create individual rights which the national courts must protect. Consequently, as the Court also found in its judgment in the Politi case, those effects preclude the implementation of even any subsequent legislative measure which conflicts with the provisions of the regulations concerned.

4. The question from what date the provisions of the regulations on the common organization of the market in beef and veal quoted by the undertaking created individual rights is also comparatively straightforward.

5. Finally, the President of the Tribunale di Torino would like to know whether the rights which an individual acquires under the duty laid down in Community regulations have existed continuously between the date on which the obligation took effect and the different date on which a national law expressly repealed a previous law which conflicted with Community regulations.

I therefore reach the conclusion that the questions referred by the President of the Tribunale di Torino should be answered as follows :

1 Translated from the German.