Judgment — ECLI:EU:T:1999:125
Date: 1999-06-15
Language of the case: Italian
Court formation: First Chamber, Extended Composition
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: State aids;Competition;Transport
Concepts: Applications by natural or legal persons
Procedure: Action for annulment - interlocutory judgment
Origin: Italy

Summary of the Judgment 
Actions for annulment — Natural or legal persons — Measures of direct and individual 
concern to them — Commission decision, addressed to a Member State, finding that a 
particular grant of aid is incompatible with the common market — Action brought by the 
regional authority which had granted the aid — Whether admissible 
(EC Treaty, Art. 173, fourth para, (now, after amendment, Art. 230, fourth para., EC) 
The purpose of the fourth paragraph of 
Article 173 of the Treaty (now, after 
amendment, Article 230 EC) is to provide 
appropriate judicial protection for all per­
sons, natural or legal, who are directly and 
individually concerned by acts of the Com­
munity institutions. Standing to bring an 
action must accordingly be recognised in 
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SUMMARY — CASE T-288/97 
the light of that purpose alone and the 
action for annulment must therefore be 
available to all those who fulfil the objec­
tive conditions prescribed, that is to say, 
those who possess the requisite legal per­
sonality and are directly and individually 
concerned by the contested act. This must 
also be the approach where the applicant is 
a public entity which satisfies those criteria. 
A regional authority is individually con­
cerned by a Commission decision, 
addressed to the Member State, finding 
that an aid programme set up by that 
authority is incompatible with the common 
market. This is because such a decision not 
only affects measures adopted by the 
authority in question, but also prevents 
the authority from exercising its own 
powers as it sees fit. It prevents the 
authority from continuing to apply the 
associated legislation, nullifies the effects 
of that legislation and requires the author­
ity to initiate the administrative procedure 
for recovery of the aid. The regional 
authority is directly concerned by such a 
decision where the national authorities to 
whom it was addressed did not act in the 
exercise of a discretion when communicat­
ing it to the regional authority. 
Furthermore, a regional authority has a 
separate interest in challenging the deci­
sion, distinct from that of the Member 
State addressed, where it possesses rights 
and interests of its own and the aid in 
question constitutes a set of measures taken 
in the exercise of legislative and financial 
autonomy vested in the authority directly 
under the constitution of the Member State 
concerned. 
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