Judgment — ECLI:EU:C:2001:623
Date: 2001-11-22
Language of the case: Dutch
Court formation: Full Court
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Agriculture and Fisheries;Association Agreement;External relations;Overseas countries and territories;Rice
Concepts: Applications by natural or legal persons
Procedure: Action for annulment - inadmissible

Summary of the Judgment 
Actions for anniáment — Natural or legal persons — Measures of direct and individual 
concern to them — Council regulation introducing safeguard measures in respect of 
imports oftice originating in the overseas countries and territories — Action brought by 
the Netherlands Antilles — Inadmissible 
(EC Treaty, fourth para., Art. 173, (now, after amendment, Art. 230, fourth para., EC)· 
Council Regulation No 1036/97) 
I - 8973 
SUMMARY — CASE C-452/98 
For natural and legal persons to be regar­
ded as individually concerned by a measure 
of general application adopted by a Com­
munity institution, it must affect their legal 
position by reason of certain attributes 
peculiar to them, or by reason of a factual 
situation which differentiates them from all 
other persons and distinguishes them indi­
vidually in the same way as the addressee. 
Regulation No 1036/97 introducing safe­
guard measures in respect of imports of rice 
originating in the overseas countries and 
territories (OCTs) is not of individual 
concern to the Netherlands Antilles. 
First, the general interest which an OCT, as 
an entity responsible for economic and 
social affairs within its jurisdiction, may 
have in obtaining a result that is favourable 
for its economic prosperity is not sufficient 
on its own to enable it to be regarded as 
being concerned, or — a fortiori — indi­
vidually concerned, for the purposes of the 
fourth paragraph of Article 173 of the 
Treaty (now, after amendment, the fourth 
paragraph of Article 230 EC), by Regula­
tion No 1036/97. 
Second, the finding that the Council was 
required, in so far as the circumstances of 
the case so permitted, to take account at the 
time when Regulation No 1036/97 was 
adopted of the negative effects which that 
regulation might have on the economy of 
the OCTs concerned and on the under­
takings concerned does not discharge the 
Netherlands Antilles from the burden of 
proving that they were affected by the 
regulation by reason of a factual situation 
which differentiates them from all other 
persons. The fact that the Netherlands 
Antilles exported by far the most rice 
originating in the OCTs to the Community 
is not such as to distinguish them from all 
other OCTs. Even if the assertion that the 
safeguard measures laid down by Regula­
tion No 1036/97 were liable to have sig­
nificant socio-economic consequences for 
the Netherlands Antilles proved to be well-
founded, the fact nevertheless remains that 
those measures will have similar conse­
quences for the other OCTs. The economic 
activity of the processing of rice from third 
countries in the OCTs is a commercial 
activity that may be carried out at any time 
by any economic operator in any OCT. 
Such economic activity is not therefore 
such as to differentiate the Netherlands 
Antilles from all other OCTs. 
(see paras 60, 64, 72-74, 76) 
I - 8974