Order — ECLI:EU:C:2015:669
Date: 2015-10-06
Language of the case: French
Court formation: Vice-President
Subject matter: State aids;Competition;Procedural provisions
Procedure: Action for annulment;Appeal - successful;Application to intervene - successful
Origin: France

Summary — Order of the Vice-President of the Court, 6 October 2015 1. Judicial proceedings — Intervention — Admissibility criteria — Interest in the result of the case — Concept— Need for a direct and existing interest — Dispute regarding the lawfulness of a Commission decision on State aid adopted without the formal investigation procedure having been opened — Action designed to safeguard the procedural rights of the persons concerned — Whether an interested party has a direct interest for the purposes of Article 108(2) TFEU (Art. 108(2) TFEU; Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 40, second para.) 2. State aid — Examination by the Commission — Administrative procedure — ‘Party concerned’ within the meaning of Article 108(2) TFEU — Definition (Art. 108(2) TFEU) 3. Appeal — Appeal held to be founded — Judgment to be given on the substance by the appeal court — Condition — Whether the state of the proceedings permits final judgment to be given (Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 61, first para.) 1. In accordance with the second paragraph of Article 40 of the Statute of the Court of Justice, any person may intervene before the Courts of the European Union if such a person can establish an interest in the result of a case submitted to one of those courts. The concept of ‘an interest in the result of the case’, within the meaning of that provision, must be defined in the light of the precise subject-matter of the dispute and be understood as meaning a direct, existing interest in the ruling on the forms of order sought and not as an interest in relation to the pleas in law put forward or the arguments raised. The expression ‘result’ is to be understood as meaning the operative part of the final judgment which the parties ask the Court to deliver. In that regard, it needs to be established, inter alia, that the applicant seeking leave to intervene is directly concerned by the contested measure and that it has a definite interest in the result of the case. In principle, an interest in the result of the case can be regarded as sufficiently direct only in so far as that result is such as to change the legal position of the applicant seeking leave to intervene. In the context of an action for annulment brought against a Commission decision on State aid –– adopted without the formal examination procedure having been opened ––, since an interested party within the meaning of Article 108(2) TFEU may seek the annulment of a decision adopted by the Commission regarding State aid, if that party seeks, by bringing an action for the annulment of that decision, to safeguard its procedural rights under that provision, another interested party within the meaning of Article 108(2) TFEU which seeks to intervene in such an action for annulment in support of the form of order sought by the applicant has an interest in the result of a case within the meaning of the second paragraph of Article 40 of the Statute of the Court of Justice. The final decision sought, as it would be embodied in the operative part of the judgment to be delivered, is liable to alter the legal position of such an applicant for intervention in that, first, it implies an obligation on the Commission to open, or, as the case may be, re-open the formal investigation procedure under Article 108(2) TFEU and, second, it confers a right on the same applicant, as an interested party, to participate in that formal investigation procedure. (see paras 4-6, 10, 11) 2. In State aid matters, in the context of the formal investigation procedure under Article 108(2) TFEU, since the Commission, in its assessment of the compatibility of State aid in the maritime transport sector, takes account of numerous considerations of various kinds, linked in particular to the protection of competition, the Union’s maritime policy, the promotion of Union maritime transport and the promotion of employment, the possibility cannot be excluded that a staff committee, which represents the collective interests of all the employees of an undertaking which has benefitted from State aid, might submit to the Commission observations on considerations of a social nature which might possibly be taken into account by the Commission in the course of the formal investigation procedure provided for in Article 108(2) TFEU. In those circumstances, a staff committee must be regarded as an interested party within the meaning of Article 108(2) TFEU. (see paras 12, 13) 3. See the text of the decision. (see paras 18, 19)