Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:1997:211
Date: 1997-04-24
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Agriculture and Fisheries;State aids;Competition;Wine
Procedure: Action for annulment - inadmissible

Summary of the Judgment 
Actions for annulment — Time-limits — Point from which time begins to run — Measure nei­
ther published nor notified to the applicant — Precise knowledge of the content of the measure 
and of the reasons on which it is based — Obligation to request the whole text of the measure 
within a reasonable period once knowledge of its existence is acquired — Council decision 
addressed to a Member State — Precise knowledge on the part of the Commission — Specific case 
(EC Treaty, Art. 173, fifth para.) 
In the absence of publication or notification, 
it is for the party which has knowledge of a 
decision concerning it to request the whole 
text thereof within a reasonable period. Sub­
ject to that reservation, the period for bring­
ing an action can begin to run only from the 
moment at which the third party concerned 
acquires precise knowledge of the content of 
the decision in question and of the reasons 
on which it is based in such a way as to 
enable it to exercise its right of action. 
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SUMMARY — CASE C-309/95 
In the case of a Council decision addressed 
to a Member State, the draft of which was 
disclosed to the members of the Council and 
of the Commission, and where the procedure 
for adoption of the decision was the subject 
of minutes drawn up by the Secretariat Gen­
eral of the Commission, the latter had pre­
cise and detailed knowledge of the decision 
at the latest by the date on which the said 
minutes were drawn up. 
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