84

Admittedly, in the judgment under appeal, the Court of Justice set aside the original judgment and annulled the contested decision in so far as the Commission and, following dismissal of the applicant’s action, the General Court, questioned the applicant’s status as an international organisation. Nevertheless, the Court of Justice highlighted that: ‘91 … The term “international organisation”, referred to [in the 2002 and 2012 financial regulations] includes “international public sector organisations set up by intergovernmental agreements, and specialised agencies set up by such organisations”. 92 In the present case, it is clear that the General Court did not review the legality of the decisions at issue in the light of that definition, but merely asserted that the arguments and evidence put forward by [the applicant] did not call into question the Commission’s doubts as to [its] status as an international organisation. 93 That assertion is vitiated by an error of law, as none of the considerations put forward by the General Court concluding that the Commission’s doubts were founded … can justify those doubts in law. 94 Regarding the first of those considerations, concerning whether several Member States presented by [the applicant] as being members of the organisation are in fact members, it is apparent from the General Court’s own findings that the Commission’s doubts in that respect concerned only “some” of [the applicant’s] members – more specifically, 5 out of a total of 16. However, the consequence in international law of such doubts, even if they were in fact well founded, would not be to deprive the entity of which those States are not – or no longer – members of its status as an “international organisation”, all the less so when, as in the present case, the States concerned form only a small part of the entity in question. 95 In respect of the second consideration, connected to the existence of doubts concerning the powers of the persons who represented certain States when [the applicant] was established, it should, similarly, be noted that those doubts could, potentially, call into question the validity of the signature, by those States in particular, of the act establishing [the applicant], but not the validity of the actual creation of that entity, given that any irregularities in representation referred to concerned only a small number of participating States. … 97 Having regard to all the foregoing considerations, the Court finds that the second ground raised by [the applicant] alleging that the General Court erred in holding … that the Commission had not erred in law or made a manifest error of assessment by justifying the adoption of the [contested decision] by the doubts it had regarding [its] status as an “international organisation” within the meaning of the 2002 and 2012 financial regulations, is well founded. … … 104 It follows from paragraphs 92 to 96 above that the [contested decision is] unlawful in so far as the factors relied on by the Commission in support of [that decision] are not such as to call into question [the applicant’s] status as an international organisation within the meaning of the 2002 and 2012 financial regulations. Consequently, the Court sets aside [that decision in its] entirety.’