Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:1997:618
Date: 1997-12-16
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Food aid;External relations
Procedure: Action for annulment;Appeal - successful
Origin: France;Provisional data;Bermuda

Summary of the Judgment
1. Appeals — Pleas in law — Admissibility — Conditions — Submission of arguments also
raised before the Court of First Instance — No effect
(EC Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 51; Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, Art.
112(1)(c)))
2. Actions f or annulment — Natural or legal persons — Measures of direct and individual con­
cern to them — 'Directly concerned'— Criteria — Implementation of a loan from the Com­
munity to the Soviet Union and its constituent Republics — Commission decision, addressed
to the borrower, refusing to approve as complying with the applicable Community provisions
an addendum to contracts concluded between the borrower's authorised agent and an under­
taking which has been awarded a supply contract — Undertaking 'directly concerned'
(EC Treaty, Art. 173, fourth para.)
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SUMMARY— CASE C-386/96 P
1. Where an appeal against a judgment of
the Court of First Instance clearly states
which aspects of the contested judgment
are criticised and the legal arguments
which specifically support the appeal, the
fact that those arguments were also raised
at first instance cannot entail their inad­
missibility.
2. For an applicant to be directly concerned
by a Community measure — a condition
of admissibility of an action for annul­
ment brought by a natural or legal person
against a decision addressed to another
person — the contested Community
measure must directly affect the legal
situation of the applicant and leave no
discretion to the addressees of that meas­
ure who are entrusted with the task of
implementing it, such implementation
being purely automatic and resulting
from Community rules without the
application of other intermediate rules.
The same applies where the possibility
for addressees not to give effect to the
Community measure is purely theoretical
and their intention to act in conformity
with it is not in doubt.
In the case of implementation of a loan
from the Community to the Soviet Union
and its constituent Republics to enable
agricultural and food products and medi­
cal supplies to be imported, an undertak­
ing which has been awarded a contract to
supply wheat is directly concerned, in the
above sense, by a Commission decision,
addressed to the financial agent of the
borrower Republic, refusing to approve
as complying with the applicable Com­
munity provisions an addendum made to
contracts concluded between the under­
taking and the agent authorised for that
purpose by the borrower Republic, in so
far as that agent's option to perform the
supply contracts in accordance with the
conditions repudiated by the Commis­
sion and thus to forgo Community
financing was purely theoretical. The said
decision, adopted by the Commission in
the exercise of its powers, thus deprived
the undertaking of any real possibility of
performing the contract awarded to it, or
of obtaining payment for supplies made
thereunder.
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