Opinion of Mr Advocate General Lenz delivered on 19 January 1988

1 Translated from the German.

2 Official Journal 1987, L 77, p. 47.

3 Sec the judgment of 11 July 1984 in Case 222/83 Municipality of Diffardange and Others v Commission [1984] ECR 2889, at p. 2896.

4 That is about ECU 1.6 million at the exchange rate prevailing on 28 November 1986; see EC Bulletin 11/86, p. 144. The contested decision is dated 3 December 1986.

5 See in particular the judgment of 17 September 1980 in Case 730/79 Philip Morris Holland B V v Commission [1980] ECR 2671.

6 Official Journal 1975, L 177, p. 13.

7 Sec the judgment of 14 October 1987 in Case 248/84 Federal Republic of Germany v Commission [1987] ECR 4013.

8 See the judgment in Case 730/79, quoted above, at paragraph 23 et seq.

9 See the statistics set out in the statement of the GEPVP in the last column of the table on page 4 and the second column of the first table on page 6. These point to a surplus capacity of 20 to 25% between the saleable capacity and the actual sales.

10 See in particular the judgments of 10 July 1986 in Cases 234/84 and 40/85 Kingdom of Belgium v Commission [1986] ECR 2263 and [1986] ECR 2321.

11 See, most recently, the judgment of 17 November 1987 in Joined Cases 142 and 156/84 BAT and Others v Commission [1987] ECR 4487, at paragraph 72.

12 Council Decision of 28 February 1984 concerning a European programme for research and development in information technologies (Esprit, Official Journal L 67, 9.3.1984, p. 54).

13 See the Twentieth General Report on the Activities of the European Communities, 1986, p. 176, paragraph 403.