Judgment_paragraph 80 · Associação dos Refinadores de Açúcar Portugueses (ARAP), Alcântara Refinarias - Açúcares SA and RAR Refinarias de Açúcar Reunidas SA v Commission of the European Communities (T-82/96)

80The Commission states in reply that a sugar quota of 60000 tonnes was allocated to mainland Portugal in the Act of Accession to enable farmers in a region offering few alternatives in terms of agricultural production to grow sugar beet. As mainland Portugal did not at that time have any sugar production capable of serving as a reference, the quota of 60000 tonnes of white sugar was regarded as the minimum necessary to allow profitable operation of a sugar refinery using sugar beet grown in the region. There was never any doubt as to the need for regional processing facilities to be installed owing to the substantial costs of transporting sugar beet as compared with production costs. Moreover, in the context of the common organisation of the sugar market, the quotas allocated to the Member States are intended for the sugar-producing undertakings established within their territory. Owing to the delay in setting up a refinery in Portugal, a transitional measure authorised a sugar plant in Spain to refine sugar beet harvested in Portugal, the sugar produced being ‘considered as having been produced by the Portuguese undertaking in question’ (Article 24(la) of Regulation No 1785/81, as amended by Council Regulation (EEC) No 1107/88 of 25 April 1988 (OJ 1988 L 110, p. 20). That measure made it possible to commence beet sugar production in Portugal in 1986 but only on a small scale. It was in order to give the necessary impetus to the construction of a profitable sugar beet refinery in that country, and thereby encourage Portuguese farmers to embark on beet sugar production, that the sugar quota allocated to mainland Portugal was raised to 70000 tonnes by the abovementioned Regulation No 1599/96 of 30 July 1996 (see the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation No 1785/81 (OJ 1996 C 28, p. 6)).