36The Kingdom of the Netherlands, whilst supporting the form of order sought by the Council, adopts a slightly more qualified argument than the Council. It contends that, in exercising the powers conferred on it by the EC Treaty, the Community may require the Member States to provide for the possibility of punishing certain conduct under national criminal law, provided that the penalty is inseparably linked to the relevant substantive Community provisions and that it can actually be shown that imposing penalties under criminal law in that way is necessary for the achievement of the objectives of the Treaty in the area concerned (see Case C-240/90 Germany v Commission [1992] ECR I-5383). That could be the case if the enforcement of a harmonising rule based, for example, on Article 175 EC gave rise to a need for criminal penalties.
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