Opinion of mr Advocate-General Reischl

Mr President,

Members of the Court,

The reference which I am about to consider concerns problems arising from the grant of a carry-over payment for quantities of cereals in stock at the end of a marketing year. The Court has already had occasion to consider such questions in the rulings given on Cases 32/72 and 52/72 (Rec. 1972, p. 1181; Rec. 1972, p. 1267). It is thus unnecessary for me to indulge in lengthy prefatory explanations of the relevant Community Regulations; the following remarks will suffice.

Pursuant to Article 9 of Regulation No 120/67 (OJ of 19. 6.1967, p. 2269/67), on the common organization of the market in cereals (which provides for the grant of a carry-over payment for quantities, inter alia, of common wheat harvested within the Community and held in stock at the conclusion of the cereal marketing year), the Commission by Regulation No 1196/71 of 8 June 1971 (OJ L 125 of 9. 6.1971) laid down the requirements for the grant of a carry-over payment for quantities of common wheat held in stock at the conclusion of the 1970/1971 marketing year. In the words of this provision, the carry-over payment instituted by Articles 1 and 2 of Regulation No 1119/71 (OJ L 118 of 31. 5.1971) shall be granted … to commercial and processing undertakings in respect of stocks of common wheat harvested within the Community and held by them on 31 July 1971. (Article 1 (1), first indentation). Article 3 of the same Regulation continues: To obtain the grant of the carry-over payment from the relevant authority of the Member State in whose territory the stocks are situated the claimant must have filed, with the said authority, by registered letter, telex or telegram, despatched on 7 August 1971 at the latest, a claim for payment giving details of quantities of cereals held by the claimant on 31 July 1972.

Firma Eugen Münche, respondent in the main action, wished to avail itself of this provision. It did so by submitting a claim, bearing the date 7 August, a Saturday, which was not however despatched until the following Monday, 9 August 1971.

In view of this fact and the provisions of the above-mentioned Article 3 of Regulation No 1196/71, the Einfuhr- und Vorratsstelle fur Getreide und Futtermittel, being the relevant German authority in this case, rejected the claim.

The claimant objected to this, on the basis of Article 3 (4) of Regulation No 1182/71 of the Council of 3 June 1971, determining the rules applicable to periods, dates and time limits, which states: where the last day of a period expressed otherwise than in hours is a public holiday, Sunday or Saturday, the period shall end with the expiry of the last hour of the following working day. On 7 June 1972 the Frankfurt Verwaltungsgericht gave judgment for Firma Munch, plaintiff in the action, finding that the claim had been submitted within the time allowed, and that the Einfuhr- und Vorratsstelle was liable to pay the plaintiff a certain sum as a carry-over payment.

The Einfuhr- und Vorratsstelle holds this legal view to be incorrect, being of the opinion that in the case under consideration Article 3 (4), second paragraph, of Regulation No 1182/71 should apply. This paragraph reads: This provision (i.e. the provision that a period shall not expire on a Saturday) shall not apply to periods calculated retroactively from a given date or event. Accordingly the Einfuhr- und Vorratsstelle appealed to the Hessischer Verwaltungsgerichtshof against the above decision of the Frankfurt Verwaltungsgericht.

In view of the problems of Community law presented by the case the court, by order of 11 May 1973, stayed proceedings and referred the following questions for a preliminary ruling:

My opinion of these qustions is as follows:

1. With regard to the first question I would again recall that Article 3 of Regulation No 1196/71 lays down that a claim for a carry-over payment was to be made by letter etc., despatched on 7 August 1971 at the latest, containing details of quantities of cereals held by the claimant on 31 July 1971. Bearing in mind the fact that only after 31 July did it become possible to determine the quantities concerned and that only from that date was it possible to submit claims, it is clear, from the above and from the fixing of a final date for the despatch of claims, that the provision contained in Article 3 — last indentation — lays down a limited, clearly specified interval of time, within the meaning of German law (cf. Palandt, Kommentar zum Bürgerlichen Gesetzbuch', 32nd Edition, Note 1 to paragraph 186), that is to say, a period. Furthermore, reference can be made to decided cases involving corresponding Regulations from previous years, in particular to the Judgments in Cases 32/72 and 52/72, which specifically refer to periods of limitation.

2. In view of the above, the second question, the text of which I will not repeat here, can be answered very briefly.

3. The third question can be answered equally briefly, since it was put to the Court only to cover the eventuality of the first question being answered in the negative and thus, if my opinion as to that question is adopted, need not be considered at all.

4. Accordingly the questions referred by the Hessischer Verwaltungsgerichtshof should be answered as follows:

1 Translated from the German.