Opinion of Mr Advocate General Mancini

Mr President,

Members of the Court,

1. The tribunal de grande instance, Saint-Brieuc (France), has referred to the Court a question on the compatibility with Community law on agriculture and the competition rules laid down in the Treaty of Rome of certain provisions of national law concerning the organization of agricultural markets.

2. In the course of the proceedings observations were submitted by the parties to the main action, the French Government and the Commission. The submissions of the Commission and of Cerafel are particularly helpful; they make it possible to identify more precisely the issue to be resolved by the Court.

3. All that now remains, in order to resolve the doubts expressed by the national court, is to examine the rules referred to in the order of 27 July 1966 in the light of that criterion. With regard to the first rule, the obligation to provide a declaration of the area cultivated, Cerafel states that the collection of production data enables it to carry out research intended to improve the quality of vegetables and their sales, and that the results of those studies may also be used by producers who are not members. In other words, the application of that provision to all producers entails benefits for the entire fruit and vegetable sector in the region; it cannot therefore be considered contrary to the common organization of the market, which, as we know, pursues identical objectives (see paragraph 1 (a) of the operative part of the judgment in Case 222/82, cited above).

4. The conclusion to be drawn from the foregoing examination of the matter is that, except with regard to the declaration of the area cultivated, the obligations laid down in the inter-ministerial order on cauliflowers and artichokes, in so far as they are extended to all the producers in the region, interfere with the proper functioning of the common organization of the market and are therefore incompatible with Regulation No 1035/72.

5. On the basis of the foregoing considerations I propose that the Court reply in the following manner to the question referred to it by the tribunal de grande instance, Saint-Brieuc, by its order of 2 July 1985 in the action brought against Cerafel by Mr Le Campion:

1 Translated from the Italian.