Opinion of the Advocate-General
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Summary of the Opinion
The Opinion examines, inter alia, the Netherlands Government' s argument that the applicable regulation provided for no limit in regard to the quantities of fish for which export refunds could be paid, unlike the case with intervention . That argument is rejected by reference to the previous decisions of the Court and in the light of the general requirements of the fisheries policy .
The Opinion then considers whether, by analogy with what the Court decided in regard to 1981 and 1982 in its judgments of 15 December 1987 in Cases 326/85 and 237/86, which are similar to this case, there were special circumstances in 1983 which, by virtue of the principles of legal certainty and the protection of legitimate expectations, attenuate the general rules applicable, according to which financing is to be refused . The reply to that question is in the negative and it is based inter alia on the view that the Member State concerned may not rely on the principle of legal certainty since the fixing of national quotas was certainly not unforeseeable but was the outcome at the Community level of a long process of development at the level of public international law . Moreover, the principle of legal certainty does not necessarily play the same role in relations between the authorities of the Member States and the Community as it does in the relations between authorities and individuals . Reliance on the principle of legal certainty appears to be all the more unjustified in this case because the Member State concerned was itself in a position to put an end to the legal uncertainty by adopting preparatory measures in good time .
The application for annulment should be dismissed and the applicant ordered to pay the costs .
(*) Original language : Dutch .
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