5.In its rejoinder the Commission retorts that the applicant's claim is invalidated by the facts which show that, during the period 1976 to 1978, regulations relating to the value of the Italian weighting were regularly adopted by the Council. Moreover, the statistical surveys, agreements and political compromises resulted finally in the adoption of Regulation No 3087/78 which did not call in question the weightings prior to 1 January 1978. As far as the telex message of 6 October 1981 is concerned, the Commission stresses that it is the Council which definitively determines the date on which the regulation is to come into effect and the Commission has no responsibility in this respect. In fact, for example, if in November 1982 the Commission proposed to the Council, following the results of the statistical surveys, an increase of 5% in the Italian weighting and the Council accepted that proposal in December 1982, officials could challenge the quantum without the Commission's raising any objection of inadmissibility on the ground that no complaints were lodged during the period taken into consideration by the regulation. If, on the other hand, the Council in December 1982 fixed a nearer date for the entry into force, for example October 1981, the Commission would not raise any objection of inadmissibility on account of any failure to lodge complaints during the period taken into consideration in that regulation, that is to say, as from October 1981, but it certainly could not guarantee that an application relating to the period prior to October 1981 might not be declared inadmissible. A close reading of the telex message can lead to no other conclusion and, furthermore, since those time-limits constitute an absolute bar to proceeding with a case, of which the Court must take cognizance of its own motion, the Commission was not in a position to give any such assurances. Proof, moreover, that the staff representatives perfectly well understood the meaning of the telex message is that a number of officials at Ispra, including the applicant, brought a fresh action (Case 320/81) to safeguard their rights and to protect themselves from any possibly inadequate retroactivity of the future Council regulation relating to the Italian weighting. Furthermore, as far as the additional submission of inadmissibility is concerned, the Commission remarks that something which is nonexistent can hardly contain in oudine something else.
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