Opinion of Mr advocate general Capotorti

Mr President,

Members of the Court,

1. The question of interpretation which must be decided in the three Joined Cases 233, 234 and 235/78 is clearly defined: it is necessary to ascertain the meaning of the expression place of storage which appears in Articles 4 (2) (c) and 14 (a) of Commission Regulation (EEC) No 2015/76 of 13 August 1976 on storage contracts for table wine, grape must and concentrated grape must.

2. The provisions of the above-mentioned Commission Regulation No 2015/76 naturally come, as specific implementing measures, within the framework of the system of the common organization of the market in wine. It is necessary however to refer first of all to Regulation No 816/70 of the Council of 28 April 1970 which takes inter alia as its basis the consideration that in the wine sector, the general objectives of stabilizing markets and ensuring a fair standard of living for the agricultural community concerned make it desirable to take intervention measures in the form of aid for private storage and, where appropriate, by the distillation of table wines (see the second recital of the preamble to that regulation). Articles 5 and 6 of the same regulation provide in particular that private storage aid is granted in respect of table wines when the forward estimates for a winegrowing year show that the quantity of table wine available at the beginning of the wine-growing year considerably exceeds total foreseeable requirements; and moreover they make the grant of the benefits conditional upon the conclusion of special contracts between the producers concerned and the national intervention agencies.

3. The two opposing arguments relating to the meaning — or perhaps rather the implications — of the expression place of storage contained in Articles 4 and 14 of Regulation No 2015/76 may be summarized in this way. According to the plaintiffs in the main actions it is not necessary for there to be a single place of storage: in their opinion, in fact, a group of producers may enter into storage contracts even if the minimum quantity (100 hectolitres in the case of wine and 50 in the case of must) laid down in Article 5 of the above-mentioned regulation is kept in different cellars. The intervention agency of the Federal Republic of Germany however maintains that storage contracts — including contracts with several wine producers relating to part quantities — may be entered into only when the whole quantity is stored in a single place (see the decision taken by the German intervention agency on 22 July 1978). The Commission, in its written statement of 19 December 1978, supported in substance the second argument.

4. In support of the argument of the unity of the place of storage a literal argument is first of all put forward: the observation is made that both in Article 4 and in Article 14 the expression place of storage is used in the singular and it is deduced from this that it must in each case be a single place. It may be pointed out in opposition to that argument that as regards the technical data listed in Article 4 (c) of the regulation (that is: quantity, colour, the total alcoholic strength, the actual alcoholic strength, the total acidity content and the volatile acidity content and sulphur dioxide content) the expressions are all used in the singular although some at any rate of those data might reasonably also be listed in the plural since within the context of the three categories (wine, grape must and concentrated grape must) there is no provision that the goods must be homogeneous. It is possible for example to imagine a total quantity of 100 hectolitres composed of wines of different origin and quality: in this case the wines, necessarily put into different vessels, would be divided into various quantities and might be of. different colours, different alcoholic strengths, different acidity contents and so forth. The same considerations apply also to the expressions vine variety and production region used in the singular in Article 4 (3) (a). As precisely the court making the reference has emphasized, in the points of Article 4 of the regulation which have been indicated it would be possible at any rate to insert each time for the purpose of clarification the word respective in front of the details … used in the singular. Nor do there seem to me to be special reasons why a restricted meaning corresponding to the singular form should be attached only to the expression place of storage.

5. A factor of great importance for the purposes of the solution of this case is that of the check. The Commission and the German intervention agency maintain that the expression place of storage must be understood as meaning single place because it is necessary to ensure that the checks which must be made on producers by the competent national intervention agencies under Article 7 of Regulation No 2015/76 so as to ensure that the conditions to which the grant of aid is subject are being complied with, can be carried out.

6. In the procedure the meaning to be given to the expression producers … in groups which appears in Article 2 (1) of the regulation and the possible connexion between that concept and the problem of the place of storage was discussed. The Commission maintained that permanent groups, such as for example co-operatives, come within the Community concept but not producers who have formed a group solely for the purpose of signing together a single storage contract. In the opinion of the Commission a wider interpretation would give rise to complex problems concerning liability if just one of those concerned does not fulfil the prescribed conditions and the others must also be liable (see the statement of 19 December 1978, para. 4).

7. In conclusion, therefore, in my opinion the following answer should be given by this Court to the sole question referred to it by the Verwaltungsgericht Frankfurt-am-Main by three orders of 10 October 1978:

1 Translated from the Italian.