Keywords

Summary



Keywords

1. Actions for annulment - Natural or legal persons - Measures of direct and individual concern to them - Regulation concerning the entry of certain names in the Register of protected designations of origin and protected geographical indications - Action brought by a producer marketing products under names entered in that register - Inadmissible

(Art. 230, fourth para., EC; Commission Regulation No 1338/2000)

2. Agriculture - Uniform legislation - Protection of geographical indications and designations of origin of agricultural products and foodstuffs - Regulation No 2081/92 - Procedure for objecting to an application for registration - Right to an effective judicial remedy - Breach - None

(Council Regulation No 2081/92, Art. 7)

Summary

1. A natural or legal person can claim to be individually concerned by a provision which, by its very nature and scope is legislative in character only if that provision adversely affects it because of certain attributes which are peculiar to it or factual circumstances that differentiate it from all other persons. In this case Regulation No 1338/2000 supplementing the Annex to Regulation No 2400/96 on the entry of certain names in the Register of protected designations of origin and protected geographical indications provided for in Regulation No 2081/92 only concerns the appellant owing to its objective status as an economic operator producing ducks for foie gras in the geographical area, as defined in the specification attached to the application for registration, and marketing the goods produced. That is an economic activity that, at any point in time, may be carried out by any undertaking.

The fact that, at the time of adoption of Regulation No 1338/2000, the appellant was in a situation in which it had to adjust its production structure in order to fulfil the said conditions is not sufficient for it to be individually concerned in a manner analogous to that of the addressee of a measure. First, even on the supposition that the Commission, when adopting Regulation No 1338/2000, ought to have taken into account, under a specific provision of Regulation No 2081/92, the consequences that the measure entailed for certain individuals including the appellant, such a constraint would not have discharged the latter from the obligation of proving that it had been adversely affected by Regulation No 1338/2000 by virtue of factual circumstances differentiating it from all other persons. On the other hand, the adoption of a production structure compatible with the maximum limits for duck production provided for in the specification attached to the application for registration in question applies to all economic operators wishing to market duck products by using the protected geographical indication Canard à foie gras du Sud-Ouest.

( see paras 33-37 )

2. The procedure for objecting to a registration established by Article 7 of Regulation No 2081/92 on the protection of geographical indications and designations of origin for agricultural products and foodstuffs is not intended to deal with objections between the competent authority of a Member State which has applied for registration of a name and a natural or legal person resident or established in that Member State. This interpretation of Article 7 of Regulation No 2081/92 is not contrary to the right of any person to secure judicial redress, as safeguarded by Community law as a general principle flowing from the constitutional traditions common to the Member States and enshrined in Articles 6 and 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights. In fact, in accordance with that general principle of Community law, it is for the national courts to rule on the legality of an application for registration of a name introduced by the competent authority of a Member State to the Commission, in the same circumstances as those applicable to all definitive measures which, having been taken by the same national authority, threaten adversely to affect third parties' rights under Community law and, consequently, to regard an action to that end as admissible even if no provision is made for such a case in the internal rules of procedure.

( see paras 45-47 )