Order — ECLI:EU:T:2003:323
Date: 2003-12-02
Language of the case: Greek
Court formation: Third Chamber
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Agriculture and Fisheries;European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (EAGGF)
Concepts: Admissibility and examination of applications, forms of order sought and pleas in law;Applications by natural or legal persons
Procedure: Action for failure to act - inadmissible
Origin: Greece

Summary of the Order 
1. Procedure — Time-limits for bringing actions — Time-bar — Excusable error — 
Meaning 
II - 5121 
SUMMARY — CASE T-334/02 
2. Actions for failure to act — Natural or legal persons — Actionable omissions — 
Failure to bring an action for failure to fulfil obligations — Inadmissibility 
(Arts 226 EC and 232, third para., EC) 
1. With regard to time-limits for bringing 
actions, an error is excusable where it 
results from confusion caused by the 
actual conduct of the institution con­
cerned and the applicant acted in good 
faith and exercised all the diligence 
required of a normally well-informed 
person. 
(see para. 35) 
2. An action brought by a natural or legal 
person for a declaration that, in breach 
of the Treaty, the Commission failed to 
act by not initiating proceedings for 
failure to fulfil Treaty obligations with 
regard to a Member State is inadmiss­
ible. Natural and legal persons may 
rely on the third paragraph of 
Article 232 EC only in order to chal­
lenge an institution's failure, in breach 
of the Treaty, to adopt measures other 
than recommendations or opinions of 
which they are potential addressees or 
which are of direct and individual 
concern to those persons. In the con­
text of an action for failure to fulfil 
obligations under Article 226 EC, the 
only measures which the Commission 
may adopt are measures addressed to 
Member States. In addition, it is clear 
from the scheme of Article 226 EC that 
neither a reasoned opinion, which is 
merely a preliminary stage after which, 
if appropriate, an action may be 
brought before the Court of Justice 
for a declaration of failure to fulfil 
obligations, nor reference to the Court 
of Justice by the actual lodging of such 
an action can constitute acts of direct 
concern to natural or legal persons. 
(see para. 44) 
II - 5122