OPINION OF MR TRABUCCHI — JOINED CASES 89/74, 18 AND 19/75 PROCUREUR GÉNÉRAL, BORDEAUX v ARNAUD

Mr President,

Members of the Court,

1. Nature and art are required to cooperate in creating a product which is part of the history of civilization and is still one of its glories.

2. In the rules designed to guarantee the quality of wines, the Community has legislated specifically on the increase in natural alcoholic strength (Articles 18 to 30 of Regulation No 816/70 of the Council); these rules are directly applicable to producers and dealers. They were adopted not only for the sake of the free movement of such products in the Community but also as is expressly made clear by the wording of Tide IV of Regulation No 816/70, with a view to their release to the market, without which the free movement of the products would, in any case, become nothing but an empty statement of principle.

3. In its first question the French court asks whether Article 8 of the socalled Wine Code which incorporates the Decree of 18 April 1898, which in turn was based on the Law of 24 July 1894, can still be regarded as fully applicable in the light of Community Regulations Nos 816 and 817/70 concerning the common organization of the market in wine and the provisions for their implementation. It must, of course, be recognized that the object of this question is not so much to obtain any ruling whether a national rule is or is not compatible with Community law but an interpretation of that law in view of the need for the national court to know the scope of its application in relation to the specific rules of national law. The court needs in particular to establish whether the Community rules enable a Member State to continue to exercise supervision and to prevent offences in connexion with the addition of alcohol to wine on the basis of a presumption which depends on the outcome of a method of analysis for the measurement of dry extract which differs from the method prescribed for the same purpose under Community regulations.

4. As is clear from the precedents established by this Court, the development of Community legislation implementing a common policy, as' in the case of agricultural policy in particular, is accompanied by a progressive limitation of national legislative powers in the sector concerned inasmuch as:

5. It must, however, be recognized that the States nevertheless have power to apply their own verification methods which are calculated to prevent or detect breaches of the Community rules on wine products. In particular, the application of a presumption of an increase in natural alcoholic strength, based on the alcohol/dry-extract ratio is not, in principle, repugnant to any Community rule.

6. As, in the absence of Community rules laying down a practical common system for the identification of fraudulent practices, it is therefore clearly open to the States to work, within the limits and subject to the conditions. I have described, on the basis of a presumption of the kind under consideration, it remains to be seen whether the national authorities may use different methods where there exist mandatory Community methods of analysis expressly laid down for the purpose of identifying certain elements and characteristics of wines. This is the specific subject of the second question referred by the Bordeaux court.

7. The fact, referred to by the French Government, that the Commission adopted the densimetric method on the basis of the practices and rules of the International Vine and Wine Office, which, in the past, had confined itself to determining the quality of wines and had never concerned itself with measures for the prevention of fraudulent practices, cannot be regarded as sufficient reason for holding this method of verifying increases in the natural alcoholic strength to be inapplicable.

8. Nevertheless, the French Government appears to accept in principle the obligation to bring itself into line with the Community method of analysis and this includes the application of Article 8 of the Wine Code. It points out however that, pending the production by the experts of a coefficient based on the densimetric method, it is necessary to continue to apply the national system for the prevention of fraudulent practices and that this can be done at the present time only on the basis of the 100o method of analysis which has already been used and tested in France for a considerable time.

1 Translated from the Italian.