Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:1999:604
Date: 1999-12-14
Language of the case: Dutch
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Agriculture and Fisheries;Milk products
Procedure: Action for annulment - inadmissible
Origin: Netherlands

Summary of the Judgment 
Actions for annulment — Actionable measures — Definition — Measures with binding 
legal effects — Preparatory measures — Exclusion 
(EC Treaty, Art. 173 (now, after amendment, Art. 230 EC) 
Only a measure whose legal effects are 
binding on the applicant and are capable of 
affecting his interests is an act or decision 
which may be the subject of an action for 
annulment. In the case of acts adopted by a 
procedure involving several stages, and 
particularly where they are the culmination 
of an internal procedure, it is in principle 
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SUMMARY — CASE C-147/96 
only those measures which definitively 
determine the position of the Commission 
or the Council that are open to challenge 
and not intermediate measures whose pur­
pose is to prepare for the final decision. 
An act which is neither capable of produ­
cing nor intended to produce any legal 
effects cannot form the basis of an action 
for annulment. In order to ascertain whe­
ther or not a measure produces such effects 
it is necessary to look to its substance. 
(see paras 25-27) 
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