4.

I should say at once that I do not find those arguments persuasive. In the first place, an examination of the rules governing the membership of the board would appear to justify the Commission's view that DEFI is merely a conduit. Apart from the points already mentioned, that view is supported by the following considerations: (a) the chairman and members of DEFI's governing board are appointed and may be dismissed by the competent Minister (Article 3 of Law No 78-654 and Articles 3 to 5 of Decree No 84-388); (b) the provisions governing the adoption of the governing board's internal rules and its decisions, which provide in particular that the grant of aid above a specified amount requires the approval of the government appointee and, where necessary, of the Minister (Articles 6, 7 and 10 of Decree No 84-388); (c) the supervisory powers conferred upon the State are exercised by an inspector in the case of decisions of an economic nature and by the Industry and Budget Ministers jointly for the purposes of the approval of the annual financial forecasts (Articles 8 and 9 of Decree No 84-388). I now turn to the issue raised in the Commission's second argument. The applicant argues that it represents the interests of the potential recipients of the aid. However, as is made clear by the letter sent to the Commission by the French Government, the aid is to be granted in the form of interest on bank loans intended to finance certain modernization projects. The aid may therefore benefit an indeterminate number of operators, and this makes it obvious that no individual person or body may be regarded as being directly and individually concerned by the decision. Furthermore, as the Court has stated in its judgments, it is not possible to ‘accept the principle that an association ... could be individually concerned by a measure affecting the general interests of that category’ (the emphasis is mine; judgment of 14 December 1962 in Joined Cases 16 and 17/62 Confédération nationale des producteurs de finits et légumes and Others v Council [1962] ECR 471, at p. 479; judgment of 18 March 1975 in Case 72/74 Union syndicale — Service public européen and Others v Council [1975] ECR 401, at paragraph 17 of the decision). I also cannot accept the inference which DEFI seeks to draw from that rule, namely that the measure must be regarded as being of individual concern if (a) it concerns the particular interests of a category of subjects and (b) the entity adversely affected by it was established for the protection of their collective interest. As the Commission has pointed out, the reference to the ‘general interests’ of a category in the judgments cited serves to distinguish them not from the interests of the members of the trade association representing that category but from the association's own interests as an organization. In other words, the requirements of the second paragraph of Article 173 may only be said to be satisfied if those interests are affected, and not merely the sum or aggregate of the individual interests of the operators represented by that organization. Yet in this case it is quite evident that such an adverse effect is not present. At the hearing, however, DEFI changed its approach, maintaining that it represented a specific interest distinct from either that of the French State or that of potential recipients of the aid. In fact the aid had a single beneficiary, namely DEFI, which in turn was responsible for distributing it to the textile and clothing industry. However, not even that change of approach succeeds in rendering the applicant's case more persuasive. By representing its task in the terms stated above, it does indeed avoid the Commission's second objection but only by confirming the justice of the first criticism levelled at it: if its task is that of a body exercising public powers or an arm of the State rather than that of a trade association, it then has no interest in bringing proceedings. In short, however they are characterized, the interests which DEFI claims to embody do not appear to me to be capable of protection within the system of actions provided for by the Treaty. They will be of relevance, if at all, at the national level. DEFI must therefore find a means of pursuing those interests before a national court and thence put them in a Community context by means of the procedure under Article 177.