Keywords

Summary



Keywords

1. Appeals - Pleas in law - Mere repetition of the pleas in law and arguments submitted to the Court of First Instance - Failure to identify the alleged error of law - Inadmissibility - Limits - Plea alleging that the Court of First Instance transposed the reasoning applicable in another case to the case appealed - Admissibility of the appeal

(EC Treaty, Art. 168a (now Art. 225 EC); EC Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 51, first para.; Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, Art. 112(1)(c))

2. Actions for annulment - Natural or legal persons - Measures of direct and individual concern to them - Regulation abolishing adjustment aid for producers of sugar and sugar beet - Action brought by sugar beet processing and beet sugar production establishments - Inadmissible

(EC Treaty Art. 173, fourth para. (now Art. 230, fourth para); EC Council Regulation No 2613/97 Art. 2)

Summary

1. It follows from Article 168a of the Treaty (now Article 225 EC), the first paragraph of Article 51 of the Statute of the Court of Justice and Article 112(1)(c) of the Rules of Procedure that an appeal must indicate precisely the contested elements of the judgment or order which it is requested to have set aside and also the legal arguments which specifically support that request. That requirement is not satisfied by an appeal which, without even including an argument specifically identifying the error of law allegedly vitiating the contested order, confines itself to repeating or reproducing word for word the pleas in law and arguments previously submitted to the Court of First Instance, including those based on facts expressly rejected by that Court. Such an appeal amounts in reality to no more than a request for re-examination of the application submitted to the Court of First Instance, which the Court of Justice does not have jurisdiction to undertake.

However, the fact that the arguments and pleas in law relating to the conditions governing the admissibility of an action for annulment brought by legal or natural persons had already been raised in the same terms at first instance cannot constitute grounds for their inadmissibility in the appeal proceedings in which the appellants challenge the reasoning of the Court of First Instance quite specifically, in accusing it of transposing to the case which is the basis for the appeal the grounds and reasoning applicable in the action for annulment brought by sugar beet producers in respect of the same provision, and failing to respond to any of the specific arguments raised by them to the effect that, as sugar beet processing and beet sugar production undertakings, they are directly and individually concerned by that provision.

( see paras 16-19 )

2. The action brought by owners of sugar beet processing and beet sugar production establishments for annulment of Article 2 of Regulation No 2613/97, which abolishes all adjustment aid to producers of sugar and sugar beet from the 2001/02 marketing year, is inadmissible.

First of all, the provision is a measure of general application as it applies to an objectively determined situation and entails legal effects for categories of persons regarded generally and in the abstract. Secondly, the fact that, when Regulation No 2613/97 entered into force, the appellants were its only actual addressees as producers of beet sugar in the region in which they operate is, not in itself sufficient for them to be regarded as individually concerned by the regulation. The general applicability, and thus the legislative nature, of a measure are not called into question by the fact that it is possible to determine more or less exactly the number or even the identity of the persons to whom it applies at any given time, as long as it applies to them by virtue of an objective legal or factual situation defined by the measure in question in relation to its purpose. The abolition of aid under Article 2 of Regulation No 2613/97, however, applies generally and for an indeterminate period to all the economic operators concerned.

( see paras 25, 29-30 )