Judgment_paragraph 19 · Agrargenossenschaft Alkersleben eG v Freistaat Thüringen (C-268/01)

19Taking the view that resolution of the dispute before it necessitated an interpretation of Community law, the Verwaltungsgericht Weimar decided to stay the proceedings and to refer the following questions to the Court:(1) Is Article 9(c) of Regulation (EEC) No 3950/92 (amended by Regulation (EC) No 1256/1999), or other provisions concerning guaranteed quantities of milk, to be interpreted, by reference to Case C-341/89 Kallmann [1991] ECR 1-25, as meaning that in the case of a holding or part of a holding in the territory of the former German Democratic Republic a milk quantity is also to be imputed to the reference quantity provisionally allocated to it in the accession territory (Thuringia) which, under the direction of the manager of the holding, has been produced from its cows installed in leased facilities in the accession territory (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern)?(2) Or is the milk quantity thus acquired to be imputed to the provisionally allocated reference quantity of the lessor farmer who is himself partly producing and the provisionally allocated milk reference quantity withdrawn in favour of Thuringia where, as in this case, federal Land borders divide the part of the holding to which the reference quantity was allocated from the part of the holding in which the milk is produced and, in contradistinction to the situation in the Ballmann case, cited above, the holding or part of the holding to which the milk reference quantity was provisionally allocated is maintained only, as it were, as the holding's head office and produces and delivers only a proportion of less than 5% of the milk reference quantity (dairy herd/milk production)?(3) Is it material to the reply to these questions that the holding producing the milk was formerly in the territory of the German Democratic Republic but that this territory was transferred to Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony) by state treaty between the two Lander of the Federal Republic of Germany known as Niedersachsen and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern?’