Judgment_paragraph 2. · Weingut Gustav Decker KG v Hauptzollamt Landau (99/78)

2.On the issue of the retroactive effect of Regulation No 649/73, the Commission states that the case-law of the Court does not in principle prevent even provisions imposing taxation from having retroactive effect; likewise neither any rules of Community law nor the legal systems of the Member States expressly prohibit such effect.In this connexion, the Commission also refers to paragraph 24 of the decision of the Court in Case 7/76, IRCA (cited above).In the Commission's submission, there is no reason to protect advantages derived from inevitable administrative delays due to rapid changes in the monetary situation: on the contrary, it follows from Article 3 of Regulation No 974/71 that in the event of any appreciable alteration in the international monetary situation, it is to be expected that new categories of goods will be brought under the monetary compensation system with effect from the time when the monetary fluctuations occur.Since the Commission's decision as to the inclusion of new goods in the system is discretionary, it cannot be foreseen with certainty in each case. For this reason, in the Commission's view, it must be accepted that in such a situation interested persons cannot be refused all protection of their expectation that the existing legal situaton will be maintained. However, the Commission submits that before the publication of the measure adopted in the Official Journal, it can prevent such an expectation from arising on the part of interested persons by making the tenor of its decision generally known in another way or by letting it be understood that a decision is imminent.Applied to the present case, these general considerations lead the Commission to the following conclusions:Owing to alterations which it was essential to make to the monetary compensation system following the fall in the lira as from 13 February 1973, new amounts could not be fixed until after the entry into force of the alterations made to the system by Regulation No 509/73 of the Council of 22 February 1973 (Official Journal L 50 of 23 February 1973, p. 1); after the Management Committee had on the same day given its opinion on the readjustment of the compensatory amounts, and the Member States had declared that they would be able to apply those new amounts as from 26 February 1973, it appeared possible to the Commission to give effect to the measures adopted as from that date.Since, owing to the accession of the new Member States and to the monetary crisis, it was not possible at that time exactly to foresee when a regulation would appear in the Official Journal, and since, having regard to the dramatic situation, it was also not possible to accept delays in the entry into force of the monetary measures decided upon, the Commission considered that it had to extend the validity of certain of those measures to periods shortly prior to publication.The Commission submits that in view of the monetary crisis, which the mass media in all the Member States reported for several weeks, expectation of the maintenance in force of the monetary measures could only be very limited. Even before the regulations in question were published, the Commission had itself sent the text of them to the administrative authorities in the Member States by telex. Thus the contents of Regulation No 649/73 were communicated to the Member States on 26 February 1973. At that time the said expectation had already ceased to exist for another reason: the Commission had made it known that retroactive charging of the compensatory amounts was to be foreseen for short periods, as appears from the information issued by the ‘Vereinigte Wirtschaftsdienste’.