ORDER OF THE GENERAL COURT (Eighth Chamber)
28 July 2021 (*)
(Action for annulment – Road transport – Regulation (EU) 2020/1055 – Conditions relating to the requirement of establishment of undertakings – Return of vehicles to the operational centre in the Member State of origin within a maximum period of eight weeks – Professional association – Standing to bring proceedings – Act not of individual concern – Inadmissibility)
In Case T‑645/20,
Dual Star Logistic SRL, established in Bucharest (Romania),
Eliton Trans SRL, established in Piteşti (Romania),
Agexim Spedition SRL, established in Piteşti,
SC A & C International Road Cargo SRL, established in Piteşti,
Uniunea Naţională a Transportatorilor Rutieri din România (UNTRR), established in Bucharest,
represented by R. Martens, lawyer,
applicants,
v
European Parliament, represented by R. van de Westelaken and A. Tamás, acting as Agents,
and
Council of the European Union, represented by A. Norberg, L. Vétillard and S. Emmerechts, acting as Agents,
defendants,
APPLICATION under Article 263 TFEU for annulment of Article 1(3) of Regulation (EU) 2020/1055 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 July 2020 amending Regulations (EC) No 1071/2009, (EC) No 1072/2009 and (EU) No 1024/2012 with a view to adapting them to developments in the road transport sector (OJ 2020 L 249, p. 17),
THE GENERAL COURT (Eighth Chamber),
composed of J. Svenningsen, President, T. Pynnä and J. Laitenberger (Rapporteur), Judges,
Registrar: E. Coulon,
makes the following
Order
Background to the dispute
1        Dual Star Logistic SRL, Eliton Trans SRL, Agexim Spedition SRL and SC A & C International Road Cargo SRL are road transport undertakings established in Romania whose operational centres are also situated in Romania. Those undertakings have fleets of vehicles used for the international transport of goods, in particular to the Central and West European Member States. They state that, at present, their vehicles leave Romania for periods in excess of eight weeks.
2        Uniunea Naţională a Transportatorilor Rutieri din România (UNTRR, National Union of Road Hauliers, Romania), also established in Romania, is the professional organisation of employers in the Romanian road transport sector and, according to its statements, the main social dialogue partner in the transport sector in Romania.
3        On 15 July 2020, the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union adopted Regulation (EU) 2020/1055 amending Regulations (EC) No 1071/2009, (EC) No 1072/2009 and (EU) No 1024/2012 with a view to adapting them to developments in the road transport sector (OJ 2020 L 249, p. 17).
4        The applicants, Dual Star Logistic, Eliton Trans, Agexim Spedition, SC A & C International Road Cargo and UNTRR, seek annulment of Article 1(3) of Regulation 2020/1055 (‘the contested provision’), which provides for the replacement of Article 5 of Regulation (EC) No 1071/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 October 2009 establishing common rules concerning the conditions to be complied with to pursue the occupation of road transport operator and repealing Council Directive 96/26/EC (OJ 2009 L 300, p. 51), by a new Article 5, which provides, inter alia, as follows:
‘Article 5
Conditions relating to the requirement of establishment
1.      In order to satisfy the requirement laid down in point (a) of Article 3(1), in the Member State of establishment an undertaking shall:
…
(b)      organise its vehicle fleet’s activity in such a way as to ensure that vehicles that are at the disposal of the undertaking and are used in international carriage return to one of the operational centres in that Member State at least within eight weeks after leaving it;
…’
Procedure and forms of order sought
5        By application lodged at the Court Registry on 23 October 2020, the applicants brought the present action.
6        The applicants claim that the Court should:
–        annul the contested provision;
–        order the Parliament and the Council to pay the costs.
7        By separate document lodged at the Court Registry on 4 January 2021, the Parliament raised a plea of inadmissibility under Article 130(1) of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court, in which it claims that the Court should:
–        dismiss the application as inadmissible;
–        in the alternative, should the Court reject the plea of inadmissibility or reserve its decision on admissibility, prescribe new time limits for the defendants to submit their observations on the substance of the case, in accordance with Article 130(8) of the Rules of Procedure;
–        in any event, order the applicants to pay the costs.
8        By separate document lodged at the Court Registry on 12 January 2021, the Council raised a plea of inadmissibility under Article 130(1) of the Rules of Procedure, in which it claims that the Court should:
–        dismiss the action as inadmissible;
–        order the applicants to pay the costs.
9        By documents lodged at the Court Registry on 2 March 2021, the applicants submitted their observations on those pleas of inadmissibility, in which they claim that the Court should:
–        reject, in full, the pleas of inadmissibility;
–        or, in the alternative, reserve its decision on admissibility until a ruling is given on the substance of the case;
–        in any event, grant the Parliament and the Council new time limits for submitting their observations on the substance of the case.
10      By document lodged at the Court Registry on 4 March 2021, Romania applied, pursuant to Article 143 of the Rules of Procedure, for leave to intervene in support of the applicants.
Law
11      Under Article 130(1) and (7) of the Rules of Procedure, if the defendant so requests, the Court may give a ruling on inadmissibility or lack of competence without going to the substance of the case.
12      In the present case, as the Parliament and the Council have applied for a ruling on inadmissibility, the Court, considering that it has sufficient information from the documents in the case file, has decided to rule on those applications without taking further steps in the proceedings.
13      In support of their pleas of inadmissibility, the Parliament and the Council submit that the applicants do not have standing to bring proceedings under the fourth paragraph of Article 263 TFEU.
14      According to the Parliament, the applicants are not individually concerned by the contested provision. According to the Council, the applicants have adduced no evidence to show that they are directly and individually concerned by that provision.
15      As regards UNTRR, in particular, the Parliament and the Council submit that it does not have standing to bring proceedings, since it does not meet the requirements laid down by the case-law for the admissibility of an action brought by an association set up to promote the collective interests of its members.
16      The applicants maintain that they are directly and individually concerned by the contested provision. They point out that, according to the case-law and for reasons of procedural economy, if it is held that the action is admissible as regards one applicant, it is no longer necessary to examine admissibility as regards the other applicants. Consequently, in their view, if it were held that the action brought by one of the applicants was admissible, the present action would be admissible in its entirety, even if one of the other applicants did not have standing to bring proceedings.
17      Moreover, in view of the fact that Romania sought leave to intervene in the proceedings and that that Member State is a privileged intervener, it is appropriate for the General Court to deal with the substance of the case, even if one or other applicant does not have standing to bring proceedings.
18      Lastly, the applicants submit that they have a personal,
vested and present interest in the annulment of the contested provision.
Preliminary observations
19      Under the fourth paragraph of Article 263 TFEU, ‘any natural or legal person may, under the conditions laid down in the first and second paragraphs, institute proceedings against an act addressed to that person or which is of direct and individual concern to them, and against a regulatory act which is of direct concern to them and does not entail implementing measures’.
20      In that regard, the first situation is not applicable in the present case, since the applicants are not addressees, within the meaning of the fourth paragraph of Article 263 TFEU, of Regulation 2020/1055.
21      As regards the concept of ‘regulatory act’ within the meaning of the third situation of the fourth paragraph of Article 263 TFEU, it must be understood as relating to all acts of general application apart from legislative acts. As regards legislative acts, the authors of the Lisbon Treaty sought to maintain a restrictive approach as regards the possibility for individuals to seek their annulment, requiring proof that they were ‘directly and individually’ concerned by those acts (see, to that effect, judgment of 3 October 2013, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and Others v Parliament and Council, C‑583/11 P, EU:C:2013:625, paragraphs 59 and 60).
22      In that regard, the test for distinguishing between a legislative act and a regulatory act is based, according to the FEU Treaty, on the criterion of the procedure, legislative or not, which led to its adoption (see order of 7 January 2015, Freitas v Parliament and Council, T‑185/14, not published, EU:T:2015:14, paragraph 26 and the case-law cited).
23      In the present case, it is apparent from the preamble to Regulation 2020/1055, in which the contested provision appears, that it was adopted under Article 91(1) TFEU and in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure, as set out in Article 294 TFEU.
24      It is apparent from Article 289(1) and (3) TFEU that legal acts adopted under that procedure constitute legislative acts. Consequently, Regulation 2020/1055 constitutes a legislative act within the meaning of the FEU Treaty.
25      It follows that the applicants also do not have a right to bring an action by reason of the third situation referred to in the fourth paragraph of Article 263 TFEU.
26      Thus, the present action is admissible only in so far as the applicants are directly and individually concerned by the contested provision, by reason of the second situation referred to in the fourth paragraph of Article 263 TFEU.
Whether Dual Star Logistic, Eliton Trans, Agexim Spedition and SC A & CExternal International Road Cargo are individually concerned
27      The Parliament contends that Dual Star Logistic, Eliton Trans, Agexim Spedition and SC A & C International Road Cargo are not individually concerned. The mere possibility of determining, at the time of adoption of a contested measure of general application, 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 those persons, as long as that application takes effect by virtue of an objective legal or factual situation defined by the measure in question. Moreover, the fact that some operators are economically more affected by a measure of general application than others does not suffice to distinguish them individually from those other operators. In the present case, the category of persons to which the contested provision applies, namely undertakings which engage in or wish to engage in the occupation of road transport operator, is entirely open-ended. Moreover, even the narrower category to which Dual Star Logistic, Eliton Trans, Agexim Spedition and
SC A & C International Road Cargo claim to belong, namely undertakings which engage in or wish to engage in the occupation of road transport operator from Romania, is entirely open-ended, since any
legal person may at any point become part of that category.
28      The situation of Dual Star Logistic, Eliton Trans, Agexim Spedition and SC A & C International Road Cargo cannot therefore be distinguished from that of any other undertaking which engages in or is likely to engage in the occupation of road transport operator from Romania. Clearly, that category is not closed and the number and identity of the undertakings potentially affected by the measure in question is, by definition, neither fixed nor ascertainable.
29      The Council submits that Regulation 2020/1055 applies to objectively determined undertakings and that the categories of undertakings referred to in that regulation do not take account of the individual situation of Dual Star Logistic, Eliton Trans, Agexim Spedition and SC A & C International Road Cargo. Moreover, the contested provision is worded in general terms and applies without distinction to any undertaking which falls within the scope of Regulation 2020/1055. Dual Star Logistic, Eliton Trans, Agexim Spedition and SC A & C International Road Cargo cannot therefore be regarded as belonging to a defined or definable group of persons individually concerned by Regulation 2020/1055.
30      The possibility that Dual Star Logistic, Eliton Trans, Agexim Spedition and SC A & C
International Road Cargo are more affected by the contested provision than Central or West European undertakings is not sufficient to distinguish them from all other economic operators and, in any event, from their competitors established in Romania or in other peripheral regions of the European Union. Thus, Dual Star Logistic, Eliton Trans, Agexim Spedition and SC A & C International Road Cargo cannot be regarded as belonging to a completely closed class of economic operators.
31      The applicants submit that such an interpretation of that criterion is too narrow. Certain judgments of the General Court, Opinions of the Court’s Advocates General and academic publications have criticised such an interpretation of that requirement, since it unduly restricts the access of legal and natural persons to the Court of Justice of the European Union as regards legislative acts.
32      Moreover, the objective of that interpretation is to prevent an actio popularis against legislative acts. However, the present action is not an actio popularis, since Dual Star Logistic, Eliton Trans, Agexim Spedition and SC A & C International Road Cargo are affected as a completely closed class of East European undertakings.
33      Thus,
that class is composed of East European professional transport undertakings that are engaged in the occupation of road transport operator, with an effective and stable establishment in their East European Member State, with operational centres in that State and that have a vehicle fleet used for international carriage, in particular to the Central and West European Member States, which leave that Member State for periods longer than eight weeks. By contrast, the contested provision does not, in practice, have any impact on Central and West European professional transport undertakings. The vehicles of those undertakings never leave their operational centres for more than eight weeks.
34      That
observation is underlined by the fact that several actions for annulment of Regulation 2020/1055 were brought before the Court of Justice and the General Court, respectively, by certain East European Member States and by transport undertakings established in those States, whereas no Central or West European Member State and no undertaking established in such a State has brought such an action.
35      Moreover, the contested provision has substantial negative effects on the closed class of Dual Star Logistic, Eliton Trans, Agexim Spedition and SC A & C International Road Cargo, which distinguishes them individually from all other economic operators concerned by the legislation at issue.
36      Lastly, Dual Star Logistic, Eliton Trans, Agexim Spedition and SC A & C International Road Cargo are individually concerned by the contested provision because they enjoy the specific protection afforded by Article 95 TFEU, particularly against any discrimination in the area of transport. According to the applicants, that article required the Parliament and the Council, when adopting the contested provision, to take specific account of the negative effects that that provision might have on transport within the European Union and to protect against discrimination in the area of transport within the European Union. According to the applicants, both the Parliament and the Council infringed that obligation.
37      In that regard, the Court notes, first of all, that it is not entirely inconceivable that a provision which by its nature and by virtue of its sphere of application, is of a legislative nature, in that it applies to the economic operators concerned in general, may nevertheless be of individual concern to some of them (see, to that effect, judgment of 18 May 1994, Codorniu v Council, C‑309/89, EU:C:1994:197, paragraph 19).
38      However, natural or legal persons can claim to be individually concerned only if the contested provision 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 persons, and by virtue of these factors distinguishes them individually just as in the case of the person addressed (judgments of 15 July 1963, Plaumann v Commission, 25/62, EU:C:1963:17, p. 223, and of 3 October 2013, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and Others v Parliament and Council, C‑583/11 P, EU:C:2013:625, paragraph 72).
39      In so far as the applicants claim that the criterion of individual concern, as interpreted by that settled case-law, is overly strict and curtails the access of natural and legal persons to the Court of Justice of the European Union as regards legislative acts, it must be borne in mind that, during successive amendments to the Treaties, and more particularly when the authors of the Treaty of Lisbon drafted the present Article 263 TFEU, those authors did not alter the wording of the condition that the act whose annulment is sought should be of individual concern, as interpreted by the Court in its settled case-law since the judgment of 15 July 1963, Plaumann v Commission (25/62, EU:C:1963:17) (see, to that effect, judgment of 3 October 2013, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and Others v Parliament and Council, C‑583/11 P, EU:C:2013:625, paragraphs 70 and 71). As regards in particular the protection conferred by Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, the Court of Justice has already clarified the fact that that article is not intended to change the system of judicial review laid down by the Treaties, and particularly the rules relating to the admissibility of direct actions brought before the Courts of the European Union (judgment of 3 October 2013, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and Others v Parliament and Council, C‑583/11 P, EU:C:2013:625, paragraph 97).
Therefore, it is necessary to examine the criterion of individual concern in the light of the settled case-law referred to in paragraph 38 above.
40      In the present case, the applicants take the view that Dual Star Logistic, Eliton Trans, Agexim Spedition and SC A & C International Road Cargo are individually concerned by the contested provision, for the reasons set out in paragraph 33 above.
41      It must be borne in mind that the possibility of determining more or less precisely the number, or even the identity, of the persons to whom an EU measure applies at any given moment by no means implies that it must be regarded as being of individual concern to them as long as that measure is applied by virtue of an objective legal or factual situation defined by it (see judgment of 28 April 2015, T & L Sugars and Sidul Açúcares v Commission, C‑456/13 P, EU:C:2015:284, paragraph 64 and the case-law cited).
42      In the present case, it is clear that the contested provision applies to Dual Star Logistic, Eliton Trans, Agexim Spedition and SC A & C International Road Cargo by reason of an objective legal and factual situation laid down by that provision and by Regulation No 1071/2009, which it amends. In accordance with
Article 1(2) of Regulation No 1071/2009, that regulation applies to all undertakings established in the European Union which engage in the occupation of road transport operator or which intend to engage in that profession. The contested provision is deemed to apply to all undertakings which fall within the scope of that regulation without distinction. That provision makes no distinction, in particular, on account of the place of establishment or the location of the operational centre of those undertakings within the European Union or on account of one of the other criteria to which the applicants refer.
43      Furthermore, as regards the applicants’ argument that Dual Star Logistic, Eliton Trans, Agexim Spedition and SC A & C International Road Cargo belong to a closed class of economic operators particularly affected by the contested provision, in particular on account of their place of establishment and the location of their operational centre, it should be noted that, according to settled case-law, the fact that certain operators are economically more affected by a measure than others is not sufficient for them to be regarded as individually concerned by that measure (see order of 10 May 2004, Bundesverband der Nahrungsmittel- und Speiseresteverwertung and Kloh v Parliament and Council, T‑391/02, EU:T:2004:138, paragraph 53 and the case-law cited).
44      Moreover, such an argument is not capable of distinguishing Dual Star Logistic, Eliton Trans, Agexim Spedition and SC A & C
International Road Cargo from all other road transport undertakings established in Romania, or from any other road transport undertaking established in other Member States, located, for example, in the peripheral areas of the European Union.
45      Therefore, the applicants have not shown that Dual Star Logistic, Eliton Trans, Agexim Spedition and SC A & C International Road Cargo are part of a closed class of operators identified or identifiable at the time Regulation 2020/1055 was adopted (see, to that effect, judgment of 27 February 2014, Stichting Woonlinie and Others v Commission, C‑133/12 P, EU:C:2014:105, paragraph 46 and the case-law cited).
46      In the light of the case-law cited in paragraph 43 above, the applicants’ argument based on the significant damage allegedly suffered as a result of the contested provision also has no bearing on whether Dual Star Logistic, Eliton Trans, Agexim Spedition and SC A & C International Road Cargo are individually concerned by the contested provision.
47      The applicants’ argument that several actions for annulment concerning Regulation 2020/1055 were brought before the Court of Justice and the General Court, respectively, by certain East European Member States and transport undertakings established in those States, whereas no Central or West European Member State, nor any undertaking established in such a State has brought such an action, does not call into question the finding that the contested provision is applicable to Dual Star Logistic, Eliton Trans, Agexim Spedition and SC A & C International Cargo by reason of an objective legal or factual situation laid down by that provision and by Regulation No 1071/2009.
48      Moreover, it is neither necessary nor possible to rule on the reasons of different Member States and undertakings for bringing or not bringing an action for annulment against certain provisions of Regulation 2020/1055.
49      As regards the applicants’ argument that Dual Star Logistic, Eliton Trans, Agexim Spedition and SC A & C International Road Cargo enjoy the specific protection afforded by
Article 95 TFEU, it should be noted that, according to the case-law, the fact that the EU institutions are obliged, pursuant to specific provisions, to take into account the consequences of the act which they propose to adopt on the situation of certain individuals may be such as to distinguish those persons individually (judgments of 17 January 1985, Piraiki-Patraiki and Others v Commission, 11/82, EU:C:1985:18, paragraphs 28 to 31; of 26 June 1990, Sofrimport v Commission, C‑152/88, EU:C:1990:259, paragraphs 11 to 13; and of 11 February 1999, Antillean Rice Mills and Others v Commission, C‑390/95 P, EU:C:1999:66, paragraphs 25 to 30).
50      However, clearly neither Article 95 TFEU nor any other provision of EU law contains any specific provision which obliged the Parliament and the Council to take into consideration, when adopting Regulation 2020/1055 or, more specifically, the contested provision, the individual situation of Dual Star Logistic, Eliton Trans, Agexim Spedition and SC A & C International Road Cargo.
51      The applicants’ arguments that the Parliament and the Council were obliged under Article 95 TFEU to take specific account of the individual situation of professional transport undertakings in Eastern Europe, which are discriminated against and which suffer only the negative effects of the contested provision, also fail to demonstrate the existence of a specific provision obliging those institutions to take specific account of the individual situation of Dual Star Logistic, Eliton Trans, Agexim Spedition and SC A & C International Road Cargo. If the applicants’ line of argument were upheld, that would mean that any legislative act alleged to have potentially discriminatory negative effects on a given group of natural or legal persons would affect all the members of that group individually, which would not be consistent with the interpretation of the criterion of individual concern adopted in the settled case-law cited in paragraph 38 above.
52      In the light of those considerations, it must be concluded that Dual Star Logistic, Eliton Trans, Agexim Spedition and SC A & C International Road Cargo are not individually concerned by the contested provision.
53      Consequently, since the criteria of direct and individual concern are cumulative criteria for admissibility when it is examined in the light of the second situation referred to in the fourth paragraph of Article 263 TFEU, there is no need to examine whether Dual Star Logistic, Eliton Trans, Agexim Spedition and SC A & C International Road Cargo are directly concerned by the contested provision.
UNTRR’s standing to bring proceedings
54      The Parliament and the Council contend that the action brought by UNTRR does not satisfy the requirements laid down by the case-law for the admissibility of an action brought by an association set up to promote the collective interests of its members.
55      The Parliament submits that no legal provision expressly confers on UNTRR the right to bring the present action. The undertakings represented by that association do not have standing to bring proceedings in their own right. UNTRR did not claim an interest of its own in bringing proceedings in the application.
56      The Council submits that Regulation 2020/1055 does not expressly confer procedural rights on any professional association. UNTRR does not put forward any argument in the application to show that it represents the interests of its members who themselves have standing to bring proceedings or that it is differentiated because its own interests as an association are affected. Moreover, the members of that association do not have standing to bring proceedings in their own right.
57      The applicants maintain in their observations on the objections of inadmissibility that UNTRR has standing to bring proceedings. First, they argue that it represents the interests of its members, including Dual Star Logistic, Eliton Trans, Agexim Spedition and SC A & C International Road Cargo, which, for their part, have standing to bring proceedings.
58      Secondly, UNTRR’s own interests as a professional association are affected. It is the principal representative of Romanian hauliers and the main partner in social dialogue in the transport industry in Romania. In addition, it is a member of the Federatia Patronala a Transportatorilor din Romania (Employer’s association of Romanian Hauliers) and the Confederatia Patronala Concordia (National Confederation of Employers). Furthermore, UNTRR played a role in the procedure leading to the adoption of Regulation 2020/1055. It conducted discussions with the European Commission and attempted to convince it, Members of the European Parliament and of the national authorities that the contested provision was anti-democratic, discriminatory and unjust. In that regard, it submitted, for example, more than 30 written observations to various Members of the Commission and of the Parliament.
59      In that regard, it must be borne in mind that actions for annulment brought by associations are admissible in three types of situations: (i) where a legal provision expressly confers on professional associations a number of powers of a procedural nature; (ii) where the association represents the interests of its members which themselves have locus standi; and (iii) where the association is differentiated by reason of the impact on its own interests as an association, in particular because its position as a negotiator has been affected by the measure of which the annulment is sought (judgment of 15 September 2016, TAO-AFI and SFIE-PE v Parliament and Council, T‑456/14, EU:T:2016:493, paragraph 55).
60      Concerning the first situation, it should be borne in mind that associations have a right to bring proceedings against an act of the Union where the provisions of EU law specifically recognise those associations as having procedural rights (see judgment of 25 March 2021, Carvalho and Others v Parliament and Council, C‑565/19 P, not published, EU:C:2021:252, paragraph 90 and the case-law cited).
61      In the present case, UNTRR has not claimed that such procedural guarantees are laid down in its favour by EU legislation, but merely stated that it was the principal representative of Romanian hauliers, the main partner in social dialogue in the transport industry and that it had been in contact with the Commission, Members of the Parliament and the national authorities before the adoption of Regulation 2020/1055. However, the fact of voluntarily participating in the preparation of a measure of a legislative nature, in the context of a procedure not providing for any intervention by individuals, cannot, in contrast to participation in a procedure providing for such intervention, give rise to a right to bring proceedings against that measure (see order of 10 December 2004, EFfCI v Parliament and Council, T‑196/03, EU:T:2004:355, paragraph 65
and the case-law cited).
62      As regards the second situation, it must be borne in mind that Regulation 2020/1055, and in particular the contested provision, applies without distinction to all present and future road hauliers in the European Union, as was stated above with regard to Dual Star Logistic, Eliton Trans, Agexim Spedition and SC A & C International Road Cargo, all members of UNTRR. The applicants do not provide any evidence to suggest that the members of UNTRR nevertheless have standing to bring proceedings against the contested provision as persons individually and directly concerned by it.
63      It should be noted that the applicants merely referred, in their written pleadings, to the considerations developed in relation to the situation of Dual Star Logistic, Eliton Trans, Agexim Spedition and SC A & C International Road Cargo, whose lack of individual concern was established in paragraph 52
above.
64      Consequently, UNTRR cannot, as a professional association, rely on its members’ standing to bring proceedings.
65      Concerning the third situation, it should be borne in mind that, according to the case-law, an organisation formed for the protection of the collective interests of a category of persons, cannot be regarded as being directly and individually concerned by a measure affecting the general interests of that category (see judgment of 15 September 2016, TAO-AFI and SFIE-PE v Parliament and Council, T‑456/14, EU:T:2016:493, paragraph 57 and the case-law cited).
66      In addition, the applicants have not shown that UNTRR had a negotiating role in the adoption of the contested provision (see, to that effect, judgment of 23 May 2000, Comité d’entreprise de la Société française de production and Others v Commission, C‑106/98 P, EU:C:2000:277, paragraphs 42 to 45).
67      Consequently, it must be held that the applicants are not in a position to demonstrate that the contested provision affects UNTRR’s own interests, within the meaning of the case-law cited in paragraph 59
above.
68      In the light of all the foregoing, the pleas of inadmissibility raised by the Parliament and the Council must be upheld, without it being necessary to examine the applicants’ arguments relating to their alleged interest in bringing proceedings and, accordingly, the action must be dismissed as inadmissible.
Romania’s application for leave to intervene
69      In accordance with Article 144(3) of the Rules of Procedure, where the defendant lodges a plea of inadmissibility or of lack of competence, as provided in Article 130(1) of those rules, a decision on the application to intervene is not to be given until after the plea has been rejected or the decision on the plea reserved. In addition, in accordance with Article 142(2) of the Rules of Procedure, the intervention is to become devoid of purpose, inter alia, where the application is declared inadmissible.
70      Since the pleas of inadmissibility have been upheld in the present case and the present order therefore closes the proceedings, there is no longer any need to adjudicate on Romania’s application to intervene. Contrary to what is suggested by the applicants, the fact that Romania sought leave to intervene in support of the form of order sought by them has no bearing on the admissibility of the present action.
Costs
71      Under Article 134(1) of the Rules of Procedure, the unsuccessful party is to be ordered to pay the costs if they have been applied for in the successful party’s pleadings. Since the applicants have been unsuccessful, they must be ordered to bear their own costs and to pay those incurred by the Parliament and the Council, with the exception of those relating to the application for leave to intervene, in accordance with the forms of order sought by those parties.
72      In accordance with Article 138(1) of the Rules of Procedure, Member States and institutions which have intervened in the proceedings are to bear their own costs. In addition, under Article 144(10) of those rules, if the proceedings in the main case are concluded before the application to intervene has been decided, the applicant for leave to intervene and the main parties must each bear their own costs relating to the application to intervene. Consequently, the applicants, the Parliament, the Council and Romania shall bear their own costs relating to the application to intervene.
On those grounds,
THE GENERAL COURT (Eighth Chamber)
hereby orders:
1.      The action is dismissed as inadmissible.
2.      There is no longer any need to rule on Romania’s application for leave to intervene.
3.      Dual Star Logistic SRL, Eliton Trans SRL, Agexim Spedition SRL, SC A & C International Road Cargo SRL and Uniunea Naţională a Transportatorilor Rutieri din România (UNTRR) shall bear their own costs and those incurred by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union, apart from the costs relating to the application for leave to intervene.
4.      Dual Star Logistic, Eliton Trans, Agexim Spedition, SC A & C International Road Cargo, Uniunea Naţională a Transportatorilor Rutieri din România (UNTRR), the Parliament, the Council and Romania shall bear their own costs relating to the application for leave to intervene.
Luxembourg, 28 July 2021.
E. Coulon
J. Svenningsen
Registrar
President
*      Language of the case: English.