Order — ECLI:EU:T:1998:197
Date: 1998-09-15
Language of the case: Greek
Court formation: Second Chamber
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Agriculture and Fisheries;Tobacco
Concepts: Applications by natural or legal persons
Procedure: Action for annulment - inadmissible
Origin: Greece

Summary of the O r d e r 
Actions for annulment — Natural or legal persons — Measures of direct and individual concern 
to them — Regulation introducing a fixed date for the determination of the rate of conversion 
into national currency of the premium for tobacco from harvests prior to 1993 
(EC Treaty, Art. 173, fourth para., and Art. 189; Commission Regulation No 3477/93, Art. 5, 
Art. 6, first indent, and Art. 7, second para.) 
An action for annulment brought by tobacco 
processing undertakings established in 
Greece challenging Article 5, Article 6, first 
indent, and Article 7, second paragraph, of 
Regulation N o 3477/93 concerning the agri­
cultural conversion rates to be applied in the 
tobacco sector is inadmissible in so far as the 
said provisions provide that, in the case of 
tobacco from harvests prior to 1993 leaving 
the place in which it was under supervision 
on 1 July 1993 or later, the rate to be applied 
for the conversion into national currency of 
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SUMMARY — CASE T-100/94 
the premium for leaf tobacco is the rate 
applicable on 1 July 1993. 
On the one hand, the regulation appears to 
be a measure having general application, 
within the meaning of Article 189 of the 
Treaty. It applies to objectively determined 
situations and produces legal effects with 
respect to categories of persons envisaged 
generally and in the abstract, namely all trad­
ers active in the tobacco sector who, within 
the Community, have brought under super­
vision tobacco from harvests prior to the 
1993 harvest and whose tobacco had not 
been removed from supervision by 1 July 
1993. 
On the other hand, whilst, in certain circum­
stances, even a legislative measure which 
applies to the traders concerned in general 
may be of individual concern to some of 
them provided that it affects them by reason 
of certain attributes which are peculiar to 
them or by reason of circumstances in which 
they are differentiated from all other per­
sons, that is not so in the present case. 
Specifically, the fact that the number or even 
the identities of the persons to whom a mea­
sure applies at any given time may be ascer­
tained more or less precisely is not sufficient 
to call into question the general application, 
and thus the legislative nature, of that mea­
sure and by no means implies that it must be 
regarded as being of individual concern to 
those persons as long as it is established that 
the measure is applicable as a result of an 
objective legal or factual situation which the 
measure defines with reference to its pur­
pose. 
In this connection, the traders concerned 
form a mixed group comprised of purchasers 
and producers of tobacco established in 
seven Member States, giving seven distinct 
relationships between the ecu and national 
currency. The fact that the provisions at issue 
may have different material effects for the 
various persons to whom they apply, namely 
traders established in a country with a less 
stable currency, such as Greece, or traders 
established in a country with a strong cur­
rency, is not in itself inconsistent with their 
legislative nature if that situation is objec­
tively determined. 
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