Report for the Hearing delivered in Case 365/85

I — Facts and issues

1. The aforesaid Directive 77/101 is intended to harmonize the laws of the Member States on the marketing of straight feedingstuffs. The directive itself was amended by Council Directive 79/372 of 2 April 1979 and its annex by Directives 79/797 and 80/510. The directives provide that the Member States are to bring into force no later than 1 January 1981 the provisions necessary to comply therewith and should forthwith inform the Commission thereof.

2. Since the Commission had received no notice within the prescribed period from the Italian Government that implementing provisions had been adopted and had not received any other information to that effect, it sent a letter dated 22 December 1983 to the Italian Government drawing attention to the infringement and requesting the Italian Government to submit its observations with regard thereto within a period of two months.

3. According to the observations forwarded by the Permanent Representative for Italy by letter dated 22 March 1984 the Italian authorities were engaged in preparing the measures necessary to comply with the directives in question. That confirmed that the Italian Republic had not adopted the measures required by the abovementioned directives within the prescribed period.

4. There was no communication subsequent to that letter to lead the Commission to conclude that the obligations imposed on the Italian Republic by the directives had been complied with. On 7 June 1985 the Commission delivered a reasoned opinion, which remained unanswered. In those circumstances the Commission brought the present action.

5. The Commission's application was registered at the Court Registry on 25 March 1985.

6. By letter dated 3 March 1986 the Commission waived its right to submit a reply.

7. Upon 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 inquiry.

II — Conclusions of the parties

The Commission claims that the Court should:

The Italian Government did not formulate specific claims.

III — Submissions and arguments of the parties

1. The Commission considers that the Italian Republic has failed to fulfil its obligations under the Treaty. According to the third paragraph of Article 189 of the EEC Treaty directives are binding, as to the result to be achieved, and pursuant to Article 5 of the Treaty the Member States are to take all appropriate measures to ensure fulfilment of the obligations arising under the Treaty or resulting from action taken by the institutions.

2. The Italian Government does not deny the infringement with which it is charged. It nevertheless observes that implementation of the directives in national law requires the adoption of legislative measures which are not easy to draft in view of the complexity of the matter.

3. The Commission considers that the aforesaid statement by the Italian Government proves the infringement and waives its right to submit a reply.

1 Language of the Case: Iulian.