Order — ECLI:EU:C:2008:207
Date: 2008-04-08
Language of the case: German
Court formation: Sixth Chamber
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Environment;Pollution
Concepts: Appeals;Applications by natural or legal persons
Procedure: Action for annulment;Appeal - unfounded
Origin: Germany

Summary of the Order 1. Appeals – Interest in bringing proceedings 2. Actions for annulment – Natural or legal persons – Measures of direct and individual concern to them (Art. 230, fourth para., EC; European Parliament and Council Directive 2003/87, Arts 9 and 11) 1. The Court may declare an appeal to be inadmissible when an event subsequent to the judgment of the Court of First Instance has removed its prejudicial effect as regards the appellant. For an applicant to have an interest in bringing proceedings the appeal must be likely, if successful, to procure an advantage to the party bringing it. (see para. 48) 2. The possibility of determining more or less precisely the number or even the identity of the persons to whom a measure applies, by no means implies that it must be regarded as being of individual concern to them within the meaning of the fourth paragraph of Article 230 EC, as long as it is established that that application takes effect by virtue of an objective legal or factual situation defined by the measure in question. With regard to the application of Directive 2003/87 establishing a scheme for greenhouse gas emission allowance trading within the Community and amending Directive 96/61, a Commission decision addressed to a Member State and rejecting in part a National Allocation Plan (NAP) for such allowances for the second allocation period is of general application, since it applies to objectively determined situations and entails legal effects for categories of persons regarded generally and in the abstract. Also, the fact that that decision resulted in the prohibition of the maintenance in force of the allocation guarantee which could have been claimed by certain operators under a national law concerning allocation of allowances for the first allocation period is not capable of conferring on that decision the character of a conglomeration of individual decisions. In that regard, the fact that the NAP notified by the Member State to the Commission must contain a list of the installations covered by the emission trading scheme and a statement of the allowances which that State intends to grant to those installations, does not make it possible to conclude that, by that decision, the Commission ruled on the individual applications. In any case, whilst they cannot apply for the annulment of the contested decision, the operators concerned retain the possibility of challenging the national measures taken in application of the contested decision and, in that context, of relying on its illegality before the national courts, adjudicating in accordance with Article 234 EC. (see paras 70-73, 78)