Opinion of Mr Advocate General Reischl

Mr President,

Members of the Court,

The system of steel production quotas has already been before the Court in a series of cases. In the course of preparation of the quota system it was found that the demand for certain tubes was increasing. This was the reason why certain materials intended for the production of tubes were exempted from the rules laid down in Decision 2794/80/ECSC (Official Journal 1980, L 291, p. 1 ei seq.). Article 6 of that decision provided that undertakings must be exempt from production quotas in respect of the following products intended for production within the common market:

(b). reversing mill plate for the production of welded tubes;

(c). hot-rolled wide and narrow strip for the production of welded tubes;

(d). hot-rolled wide strip for the production of tinplate;

(e). ingots, rounds and squares for seamless tubes.

The steel producers were, however, still obliged bv virtue of Article 11 of Decision 2974/80/ECSC to supply information to the Commission in respect of those products.

Material for tube can be used for other products. It therefore appeared necessary to the Commission, in the interests of the proper functioning of the quota system to ensure that only the products mentioned in Article 6 were exempted from the quota system. To that end the Commission, having regard to the ECSC Treaty and in particular to Article 95 thereof, adopted on 13 February 1981 Decision 385/81/ECSC concerning certain obligations to be fulfilled by Community producers of steel tube (Official Journal 1981, L 42, p. 17).

Article 1 of the decision provided as follows:

Article 2 of the decision provides that:

That decision entered into force, pursuant to Article 3 thereof, on the day of its publication in the Official Journal, that is to say, on 14 February 1981 and, pursuant to the same provision, ceased to apply with effect from 30 June 1981.

The applicants in these proceedings, who are among the tube producers covered by Decision 385/81/ECSC, are of the opinion that the Commission has unlawfully imposed obligations on them, since they do not come within the jurisdiction of the Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community and are not associated with undertakings engaged in production in the coal or the steel industry. Unlike other undertakings in a similar position they did not, therefore, furnish the reports which became due as from March 1981. The Commission reacted by sending letters of reminder in June 1981. However no sanctions were imposed and there were not even any proceedings for the imposition of sanctions; similarly, no checks were carried out among the applicants.

On 6 April 1981 the applicants applied to the Court claiming that Decision 385/81/ECSC should be declared void as regards themselves.

My views on these proceedings are as follows:

1 Tranilated from the German