Keywords

Summary



Keywords

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Actions for annulment ° Natural or legal persons ° Acts of direct and individual concern to them ° Commission Decision addressed to a Member State authorizing, by extending general aid schemes for shipbuilding, the application of national provisions granting tax advantages ° Action brought by a maritime transport undertaking which has made a complaint to the Commission ° Inadmissible

(EC Treaty, Art. 173, fourth para.)

Summary

A decision adopted by the Commission under Articles 3 and 4 of Directive 90/684 and addressed to a Member State, in which it approves, by extending various aid schemes for shipbuilding, the application of national provisions of general application granting tax advantages to shipowners and persons investing in new ships, appears with regard to the potential beneficiaries of those provisions to be a measure of general application which covers situations which are determined objectively and entails legal effects for a class of persons envisaged in a general and abstract manner.

A maritime transport undertaking which is a competitor of a potential beneficiary of aid so authorized cannot therefore be regarded as individually concerned by that decision within the meaning of the fourth paragraph of Article 173 of the Treaty.

That decision affects the undertaking only by virtue of its objective capacity as a transport undertaking in the same manner as any other trader who is, or might be in the future, in the same situation.

The mere fact that the applicant made a complaint to the Commission and in that connection corresponded and had meetings with the Commission cannot constitute sufficient circumstances peculiar to the applicant by which it can be distinguished individually from all other persons, and thus confer on it standing to bring proceedings against a general aid scheme.

While the case-law recognizes that the "parties concerned" within the meaning of Article 93(2), namely the persons, undertakings or associations whose interests might be affected by the grant of the aid, in particular competing undertakings and trade associations, have a remedy against decisions under Article 93(3) of the Treaty which find that the grant of individual aids is compatible with the common market, the purpose of that remedy being to ensure that the procedural guarantees provided for in Article 93(2) are respected, there cannot, at the time of the adoption of a decision concerning a general aid scheme and hence before the grant of individual aids in application of that scheme, be any "competing undertakings" which could invoke the procedural guarantees under Article 93(2) of the Treaty.

Finally, to treat as admissible an application by an undertaking which is only indirectly and potentially affected by the general aid scheme, and is thus only marginally concerned by a Commission decision authorizing that scheme, would, by depriving of its legal content the concept of "individually concerned" within the meaning of the fourth paragraph of Article 173 of the Treaty, have the effect of giving a virtually unlimited number of undertakings the right to bring proceedings against a decision of general application. The possible absence of a remedy under national law cannot constitute a ground for the Court to exceed the limits of its jurisdiction set by the fourth paragraph of Article 173 of the Treaty.