JUDGMENT OF 28. 2. 1978 — CASE 85/77 SANTA ANNA AZIENDA AVICOLA v INPS
In Case 85/77 REFERENCE to the Court under Article 177 of the EEC Treaty by the Tribunale di Roma for a preliminary ruling in the action pending before that court between
THE COURT composed of: H. Kutscher, President, M. Sørensen and G. Bosco (Presidents of Chambers), A. M. Donner, P. Pescatore, Lord Mackenzie Stuart and A. Touffait, Judges, Advocate General: G. Reischl Registrar: A. Van Houtte
gives the following
JUDGMENT
Facts and issues
I — Facts and procedure
II — Summary of observations submitted under Article 20 of the Protocol on the Statute of the Court
Observations of Santa Anna Azienda Avicola s.r.l.*
Submissions relating to the facts
Submissions of law
1. Unique Community meaning of the terms and wording used by the Treaty and secondary law
2. Community meaning of agricultural holding
3. The legal equality of subjective situations falling under the general concept of agricultural holding
4. The application of the prohibition of discrimination to the treatment of subjective situations inherent in the concept of agricultural holding
5. Conclusions
Observations of the Istituto
Observations of the Italian Government
Observations of the Commission
III — Oral procedure
Decision
Costs
I —. Facts and procedure
1. The Società Santa Anna Azienda Avicola, whose business is the raising of poultry and laying hens, brought an action on 5 January 1973 before the Tribunale Civile di Roma against the Istituto Nazionale della Previdenza Sociale (hereinafter referred to as the Istituto) for a declaration that it was entitled to be classified as an agricultural holding and accordingly to pay to the Servizio Contributi Agricoli Unificati (hereinafter referred to as the Servizio) only insurance contributions in respect of the labour it employed.
2. The investigating magistrate, acceding to an application made by the Società Santa Anna gave leave on 4 December 1973 for the Servizio to be joined as defendant. After being joined the Servizio confirmed that it considered the classification of the Società Santa Anna as an agricultural holding to be correct.
3. At the hearing on 28 April 1977 the Società Santa Anna applied for the proceedings to be stayed and the case referred to the Court of Justice of the European Communities for a preliminary ruling under Article 177 of the EEC Treaty. The Servizio joined in this application while the Istituto was content to leave the matter to the court's discretion. By order of 19 May 1977 the investigating magistrate stayed the proceedings and ordered the case to be referred to the Court for a preliminary ruling on the interpretation of Article 38 (1), (3) and (4) of the Treaty establishing the EEC in relation to Annex II (list referred to in Article 38 of the Treaty), Regulation No 70/66/EEC of 14 June 1966 published on 24 June 1966 in the Journal Officiel de la Communauté No 112, in so far as the following points are concerned:
4. After hearing the report of the Judge-Rapporteur and the views of the Advocate General, the Court decided to open the oral procedure without any preparatory enquiry.
II —. Summary of observations submitted under Article 20 of the Protocol on the Statute of the Court
1. Unique Community meaning of the terms and wording used by the Treaty and secondary law
2. Community meaning of agricultural holding
3. The legal equality of subjective situations falling under the general concept of agricultural holding
4. The application of the prohibition of discrimination to the treatment of subjective situations inherent in the concept of agricultural holding
5. Conclusions
1. Primarily declare that it has no jurisdiction where the determination of the character of a holding for the purpose of fixing the amount of the social security contributions does not depend on Community rules but on national law.
2. Alternatively, if it considers itself unable to decline jurisdiction, rule whether the principles laid down by the Treaty and by Community regulations in relation to agriculture apply also to the legislation of Member States in insurance matters.
III —. Oral procedure
1. By order of 19 May 1977 received at the Court on 5 July 1977 the Tribunale Civile di Roma made a reference for a preliminary ruling under Article 177 of the EEC Treaty on the interpretation of Article 38 (1), (3) and (4) of the EEC Treaty in relation to Annex II of the Treaty and of certain provisions of Regulation No 70/66/EEC of the Council of 14 June 1966 (Journal Officiel No 112, p. 2065) and Regulation No 91/66/EEC of the Commission of 29 June 1966 (Official Journal, English Special Edition 1965-1966, p. 112) and referred a number of questions on the definition of agricultural holding at a Community level and the possible consequences of this in the legal systems of the Member States.
2. It appears from the order for reference that the plaintiff company in the main action which carries on in Italy the business of raising poultry and laying hens brought an action in the national court against the Istituto della Previdenza Sociale (hereinafter referred to as the Istituto) for a declaration of its right to be classified for the purpose of social security contributions in respect of the labour it employs as an agricultural and not industrial undertaking and therefore to make payment only to the Servizio dei Contributi Agricoli Unificati of the above-mentioned contributions at the rates applicable to agricultural undertakings which it seems are less than those applicable to industrial undertakings and demanded of the plaintiff company by the Istituto.
3. First it is necessary to consider Question 1 (b) put by the national court which asks whether the Community has adopted a Community concept of an agricultural holding for the purposes of identifying holdings of this nature and whether the Member States are accordingly obliged to employ the concepts provided in the Treaty and the said regulations in order to identify the agricultural holdings to which the principles laid down at Community level and those evolved by the various national legal systems with regard to social security.
4. An answer in the negative to the first part of this question would render the other questions superfluous.
5. Article 38 (1) of the Treaty provides that the Common Market shall extend to agriculture and trade in agricultural products.
6. The article continues Agricultural products means the products of the soil, of stockfarming and of fisheries and products of first-stage processing directly related to these products, all of which are listed in Annex II of the Treaty.
7. Article 39 (2) of the Treaty provides that in working out the common agricultural policy and the special methods for its application, account shall be taken of the particular nature of agricultural activity, which results from the social structure of agriculture and from structural and natural disparities between the various agricultural regions.
8. On the other hand since the Treaty contains no precise definition of agriculture and still less of agricultural holding, it is for the Community institutions to work out, where appropriate, for the purposes of the rules deriving from the Treaty such a definition of agricultural holding.
9. Although the words agricultural holding are used in various places in the Community rules, including the regulations referred to in the order for reference, adopted by the Council or in certain cases by the Commission, in the sphere of agriculture, the definition of these words is far from being uniform throughout these rules, which are in any case heterogeneous, but on the contrary varies according to the specific objectives pursued by the Community rules in question.
10. Even in the restricted area of statistics to which the regulations mentioned in the order for reference refer, the definitions of agricultural holding contained in the Community measures are not identical.
11. Thus by way of example Article 2 of Regulation No 70/66, on the organization of the basic survey as part of the programme of surveys into the structure of agricultural holdings states that for the purposes of this regulation agricultural holding means a farm business situated within a limited geographical area, operated as a single unit, under a single management and producing products appearing on the list given in Annex I to that regulation.
12. Regulation No 91/66 concerning the selection of returning holdings for the purpose of determining incomes of agricultural holdings while adopting for the purposes of its application the above-mentioned definition adds a new class of agricultural holdings to those referred to in Regulation No 70/66, namely market-oriented agricultural holdings.
13. On the other hand Article 2 of Council Regulation (EEC) No 1035/76 of 30 April 1976 relating to the organization of a survey on the earnings of permanent workers employed in agriculture (Official Journal L 118, p. 3) restricts the scope of the survey to all holdings which engage in activities as specified and defined under class'01 of the General Nomenclature of Economic Activities in the European Communities and consequently excludes first-stage processing industries considered for other purposes as agricultural activities.
14. It follows from the above that it is impossible to find in the provisions of the Treaty or in the rules of secondary Community law any general uniform Community definition of agricultural holding universally applicable in all the provisions laid down by law and regulation relating to agricultural production.
15. Since in the absence of such a definition the above-mentioned question must be answered in the negative, it becomes unnecessary to answer the other questions put by the national court.
16. The costs incurred by the Government of the Italian Republic and the Commission of the European Communities which submitted observations to the Court are not recoverable.
17. As these proceedings are, in so far as the parties to the main action are concerned, in the nature of a step in the action pending before the national court, the decision on costs is a matter for that court.
On those grounds, THE COURT in answer to the questions submitted to it by the Tribunale Civile di Roma by order of 5 July 1977, hereby rules: