AGRICULTURE: COURT SIDES WITH THE COUNCIL ON ARTICLE ON BEEF LABELLING.

The Court maintained that the context in which an act was adopted must not be taken into consideration in determining the legal basis of the act, thus supporting the case put forward by the Council. The latter argued that the principal objective of the contested Regulation was not the protection of public health but the re-establishment of stability in the beef market following the BSE crisis, that is to say a Common Agricultural Policy objective covered by the original Article 39 of the EC Treaty. The Commission, however, argued that the contested Regulation was adopted in order to protect public health in the light of the BSE crisis, which is why the information covered by the labelling system is intended to reassure consumers that the beef they are buying is of no danger to their health.--By application lodged at the Court Registry on July 27, 1997, the European Commission brought an action under Article 173 of the EC Treaty for the annulment of Council Regulation 820/97/EC of April 21 1997 establishing a system for the identification and registration of cattle and regarding the labelling of beef and beef products (Official Journal of the European Communities No L117, p.1). On October 2, 1996 the Commission submitted two proposals for Regulations, one establishing a system for the identification and registration of cattle (OJ C349, p.10) and the other regarding the labelling of beef and beef products (OJ C349, p.14). The two proposals were based on Article 43 of the EC Treaty. On February 19, 1997 the two proposals were the subject of a general debate of a plenary session of the European Parliament, which adopted in the proposal concerning labelling an amendment designed to substitute for Article 43 of the EC Treaty Article 100a of the EC Treaty (now, after amendment, Article 95 EC). By contrast, in the proposal concerning the identification and registration of cattle, no amendment was adopted to that effect, but the rapporteur, supported by other participants, asked the Commission to agree to change the legal basis of the proposal and to Article 100a of the Treaty. The two proposals for regulations were then merged by the Commission, which on March 7 put forward a single amended proposal on the basis of Article 100a of the Treaty (OJ C100, p. 22). On April 21, 1997 the contested Regulation was adopted unanimously by the Council, after it had amended the legal basis of the Regulation and had decided in favour of Article 43 of the...