Opinion of Mr Advocate General Mancini

Mr President,

Members of the Court,

1. The Court is sufficiently familiar with the Community rules concerning the supervision and regulation of steel production for there to be any need to repeat them here.

2. In its first submission, the applicant complains that the Commission unfairly allocated a small delivery quota to it. In its view, the Commission was at fault in two ways: in the first place, by permitting Sideradria to deliver on the common market only half of the goods which it produced, it obliged the applicant to use only 25% of its working capacity; secondly, by imposing such an abnormal limitation on the applicant, the Commission discriminated against it in relation to the great majority of European undertakings, which are allowed to deliver practically their entire production on the common market. Although the latter contention is not supported by any evidence (the Commission has produced figures showing that as far as the ratio between production and deliveries is concerned, the applicant's situation is at least comparable to that of many other undertakings), the first contention is certainly insufficient to substantiate the allegation that the contested decision is unlawful. In fact, Sideradria does not deny that the supervisory authority, in fixing the disputed quota, complied scrupulously with the applicable rules. It claims however that confronted with the manifest unfairness of the situation in which the applicant finds itself, the Commission cannot take refuge behind a strict application of the rules in force.

3. In its second submission, Sideradria charges the defendant with: (a) failing to take account of the gravity of the applicant's situation and not granting it the required adjustments, or applying such adjustments erroneously (the applicant refers in particular to Article 8 (2) of Decision No 1831/81/ECSC of 24 June 1981, Official Journal, L 180, p. 1 — as amended by Decision No 2804/81/ECSC of 23 September 1981, Official Journal L 278, p. 1 — and to Article 14 of Decision No 234/84/ECSC of 31 January 1984, Official Journal L 29, p. 1); and (b) overlooking mistakes made in its own calculations which altered to the applicant's detriment the reference figures used in determining the quotas.

4. In the light of the foregoing considerations, I propose that the Court dismiss the application lodged on 13 August 1984 by Sideradria SpA and, in accordance with the provisions of Article 69 (2) of the Rules of Procedure, order the applicant to pay the costs.

1 Translated from the Italian.