Order — ECLI:EU:C:2003:675
Date: 2003-12-12
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Agriculture and Fisheries;Approximation of laws;Plant health legislation
Concepts: Applications by natural or legal persons
Procedure: Action for annulment;Appeal - unfounded
Origin: Germany

Summary of the Order 
1. Actions for annulment — Natural or legal persons — Measures of direct and 
individual concern to them — Regulation concerning biocidal products — Action 
brought by a producer — Inadmissible 
(Art. 230, fourth para., EC; Commission Regulation No 1896/2000) 
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SUMMARY — CASE C-258/02 P 
2. Actions for annulment — Natural or legal persons — Measures of direct and 
individual concern to them — Directive on biocidal products — Directive not 
capable of identifying a producer of biocidal products for the purposes of the 
regulation concerning such products 
(Art. 230, fourth para., EC; Commission Regulation No 1896/2000; Directive 98/8 of 
the European Parliament and of the Council) 
3. Actions for annulment — Natural or legal persons — Proceedings for annulment 
before the Community Court where there is an insurmountable obstacle deriving from 
national rules of procedure — Excluded 
(Art. 230, fourth para., EC) 
1. The fact that Regulation No 1896/2000 
on the first phase of the programme 
referred to in Article 16(2) of Directive 
98/8 of the European Parliament and of 
the Council on biocidal products 
allows all producers and formulators 
to continue or to begin marketing 
existing active substances and biocidal 
products containing those substances 
for the product type(s) for which the 
Commission has accepted at least one 
notification does not appear to be 
inconsistent with the fact that that 
regulation is addressed to all those 
who have an interest in the identifica­
tion and notification of existing active 
substances and biocidal products con­
taining those substances and not only 
operators who placed a biocidal prod­
uct containing such substances on the 
market before 14 May 2000. It cannot 
be inferred from those two facts that 
the Court of First Instance drew a 
distinction between the abstract cat­
egory comprising all those operators 
who have an interest in identification 
and notification and that made up of 
the ascertained and closed group of 
companies whose notification was 
accepted by the Commission, with the 
result that notifiers should have been 
regarded as individually concerned by 
the said regulation. 
In that connection, a measure of gen­
eral application such as a regulation 
can be of individual concern to natural 
and legal persons only if it affects them 
by reason of certain attributes peculiar 
to them, or by reason of a factual 
situation which differentiates them 
from all other persons and distin­
guishes them individually in the same 
way as the addressee. However, on the 
date of its adoption, Regulation 
No 1896/2000 was in principle capable 
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BACTRIA v COMMISSION 
of applying to an indeterminate 
number of economic operators with 
an interest in notification and not to a 
closed category thereof whose notifi­
cations had been accepted by the 
Commission. 
(see paras 33-34) 
2. Recital 23 in the preamble to Directive 
98/8 on biocidal products does not 
confer procedural rights on a producer 
of biocidal products in the context of 
the procedure for the adoption of 
Regulation No 1896/2000 on the first 
phase of the programme referred to in 
Article 16(2) of that directive. That 
recital merely states that the implemen­
tation of the directive, the adaptation 
of its annexes to developments in tech­
nical and scientific knowledge and the 
inclusion of active substances in the 
appropriate annexes necessitate close 
cooperation between the Commission, 
the Member States and applicants and 
that, in the event of its application, the 
procedure of the Standing Committee 
on Biocidal Products provides an 
appropriate basis for such cooperation. 
In any event, such a recital is not in any 
event capable of distinguishing the 
appellant individually in relation to 
the said regulation. 
(see para. 44) 
3. A direct action for annulment could 
not be brought before the Community 
Court even if it could be shown, 
following an examination by that 
Court of the national procedural rules, 
that those rules do not allow an 
individual to bring proceedings to con­
test the validity of the Community 
measure at issue. Such an approach 
would require the Community Court, 
in each individual case, to examine and 
interpret national procedural law, 
which would go beyond its jurisdiction 
when reviewing the legality of Com­
munity measures. 
(see para. 58) 
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