Judgment_paragraph 76 · Afrikanische Frucht-Compagnie GmbH and Internationale Fruchtimport Gesellschaft Weichert & Co. v Council of the European Union and Commission of the European Communities (T-64/01, T-65/01)

76They observe, first, that Regulation No 2362/98 introduced a new arrangement and, by Article 31, repealed Regulation No 1442/93 with effect from 1 January 1999. Article 6 of Regulation No 1924/95, which referred to Regulation No 1442/93, was therefore no longer applicable for the purpose of determining the reference quantities for 1999. The applicants' claim that Regulation No 1924/95 was still in force in 1999 is incorrect, for a number of reasons. First, that regulation contained transitional measures which were necessary owing to the accession of the new Member States to the Community and which were intended to facilitate the transition from the arrangement existing in those States before their accession to the common organisation of the market in bananas. However that transitional stage had long been completed in 1999. The Commission states that Regulation No 1924/95 was based on Article 149(1) of the Act concerning the conditions of accession of the new Member States and the adjustments to the Treaties on which the European Union is founded (OJ 1994 C 241, p. 9) and that that article provided for the possibility of adopting transitional measures only until 31 December 1997, their application being limited to that date. Second, the Council and the Commission state that the provisions of Regulation No 2362/98 are subsequent legislation and must therefore prevail over any inconsistent provisions of Regulation No 1924/95. Third, the Commission maintains that Article 6 of that regulation was also inapplicable in 1999, for substantive reasons. Once the transitional measures had expired, thus as from 1996, operators in the new Member States were to be treated in the same manner as those in other Member States. Accordingly, Article 6 of Regulation No 1924/95 provided that, even though 1995 was included in the reference period, the reference quantities for operators in the new Member States were to be determined in accordance with the general criteria laid down in Articles 3 and 5 of Regulation No 1442/93. However, since the 1993 regime had, in the meantime, been replaced by the 1999 regime, there was no point in continuing to guarantee the undifferentiated application to all Member States of provisions which had been repealed.