A — · Interzuccheri S.p.A. v Società Rezzano e Cavassa (105/76)

A —On 18 December 1967 the Council adopted Regulation No 1009/67/EEC on the common organization of the market in sugar, which came into force on 1 July 1968; the regulation applied inter alia to white and raw beet sugar and cane sugar and also to sugar beet and sugar cane.Under Article 34 the Italian Republic is, up to and including the 1974/75 marketing year, authorized to grant ‘adaptation subsidies to its beet growers and to its beet processing industry’ — that is to say, the sugar industry. The subsidy may not exceed a specified sum per metric ton of beet or per hundred kilogrammes of white sugar; it may only be granted in respect of a quantity which is within the basic quota. With reference to this, the fourteenth recital in the preamble to the said regulation states that ‘beet and sugar production in Italy is rendered difficult by climatic conditions and, in the case of beet production, by the additional problems presented by the application of modern production methods’ and that ‘provision should be made for granting temporary subsidies to both these activities’.Under Article 38 of Regulation (EEC) No 3330/74 of the Council of 19 December 1974, which repeals Regulation No 1009/67/EEC, the Italian Republic is authorized to grant, during the 1975/1976 to 1979/1980 marketing years, adaptation aids which may not exceed a total of 5·9 units of account per metric ton of beet with a 16 % sugar content processed into sugar. This maximum of 5·9 u.a. was, for the 1976/1977 marketing year, raised to 9·9 u.a. a portion of which might be granted to the processing industry (Regulation (EEC) No 1487/76 of the Council of 22 June 1976, OJ L 167, p. 9).Order No 1195, adopted on 22 June 1968 by the Comitato Interministeriale dei Prezzi (Interdepartmental Committee on Prices, hereinafter referred to as ‘the CIP’) (Gazzetta Ufficiale No 162 of 27. 6. 1968, p. 4057) established on the Italian market the Cassa Conguaglio Zucchero (Sugar Equalization Fund) financed in particular by a sovrapprezzo (surcharge) on every quantity and type of white sugar, whether home produced or imported.Paragraph 6 of the operative part of this measure provided that the income of the Fund must be used to pay for:— the subsidy to beet growers and the beet processing industry ‘pursuant to Article 34 of Regulation No 1009/67’;— the subsidy to the processing industry in the form of the refund of tax paid on the proceeds of the purchase and transport of beet;— the subsidy in respect of the storage costs of the surplus from the 1967/68 harvest and ‘in respect of losses in exporting it [surplus white sugar produced during the 1967/68 sugar year] … which has to be exported before 1 July 1969 (Regulation No 457/68 of 11 April 1968)’;— the subsidy to sugar undertakings in order to offset payments made by the latter to beet growers in accordance with an earlier national measure;— aid towards a financial reorganization in respect of the cost of transactions carried out in the past by the Equalization Fund in respect of the price of imported sugar;— a subsidy to exporters equivalent to the amount of the surcharge referred to above;— interest on debit balances for subsidy payments related to surplus output;— payment of the management expenses of the Fund.The surcharge was fixed at 56 lire per kilogramme for the marketing year 1975/1976 (CIP Order No 14/1975 of 1 July 1975) and increased to 70 lire per kilogramme for the 1976/1977 marketing year (CIP Order No 20/1976 of 1 July 1976).During the 1975/1976 marketing year provision was made for the following subsidies:(a) a subsidy for home-produced beet amounting to 5056.30 lire per metric ton (CIP Order No 18/1975 of 11 August 1975, paragraph 3);(b) an additional subsidy for home-produced beet amounting to 3165.11 lire per metric ton (above-mentioned CIP Order, paragraph 4);(c) a subsidy for home-produced sugar amounting to 2156.30 lire per 100 kilogrammes (CIP Order No 19/1975 of 11 August 1975, paragraph 5 d).