Keywords

Summary



Keywords

1. Actions for annulment – Natural or legal persons – Measures of direct and individual concern to them – Decision approving a programming document for the development of rural areas – Provision imposing a limit on aid for the forestry industry – Action brought by a person operating a forestry holding – Not permissible

(Art. 230, fourth para., EC)

2. European Communities – Judicial review of the legality of the acts of the institutions – Measures of general application – Need for natural or legal persons to have recourse to a plea of illegality or a reference for a preliminary ruling on validity – Obligation of the Member States to establish a complete system of legal remedies and procedures enabling the right to effective judicial protection to be guaranteed

(Arts 230, fourth para., EC, 234 EC and 241 EC)

3. Actions for annulment – Natural or legal persons – Possible lack of legal remedies – No impact on the system of legal remedies and on the conditions of admissibility regarding actions for annulment – Interpretation, contrary to law, of the requirement of being individually concerned – Not permissible

(Art. 230, fourth para., EC)

Summary

1. The operator of a forestry holding is not individually concerned by a Commission decision approving a programming document submitted to it by a Member State on the basis of the rural development plan and which is addressed only to that Member State. The provision introducing restrictions on aid to forestry inserted in the programming document approved by the Commission, in accordance with Article 44(2) of Regulation No 1257/1999 on support for rural development from the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund, should be regarded as a measure of general application which applies to objectively determined situations and which has legal effects with regard to categories of persons viewed generally and in the abstract. It is not sufficient that certain traders may be more affected economically by a measure than their competitors for them to be considered to be individually concerned by it. The possibility of determining more or less precisely the number, or even the identity, of the persons to whom a measure applies by no means implies that it must be regarded as being of individual concern to them as long as it is established that that application takes effect by virtue of an objective legal or factual situation defined by the measure in question.

(see paras 36, 43, 45-46, 49)

2. By Article 230 EC and Article 240 EC, on the one hand, and by Article 234 EC, on the other, the Treaty has established a complete system of legal remedies and procedures designed to ensure judicial review of the legality of acts of the institutions, and has entrusted such review to the Community Courts. Under that system, where natural or legal persons cannot, by reason of the conditions for admissibility laid down in the fourth paragraph of Article 230 EC, directly challenge Community measures of general application, they are able, depending on the case, either indirectly to plead the invalidity of such acts before the Community Courts under Article 241 EC or to do so before the national courts and ask them, since they have no jurisdiction themselves to declare those measures invalid, to make a reference to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling in that regard. It falls to Member States to establish a complete system of legal remedies and procedures enabling the right to effective judicial protection to be guaranteed.

(see paras 51-52)

3. The right to effective judicial protection cannot give rise to an interpretation of Article 230 EC according to which an action for annulment must be declared admissible if it is shown, following an examination of the national procedural rules by the Community Court, that those rules do not allow an individual to bring proceedings to contest the validity of the Community measure at issue. Such an interpretation would require the Community Court, in each individual case, to examine and interpret national procedural law. That would go beyond its jurisdiction when reviewing the legality of Community measures. Although the requirement for individual interest laid down in the fourth paragraph of Article 230 EC must be interpreted in the light of the principle of effective judicial protection, taking into account the various circumstances that may distinguish an applicant individually, such an interpretation cannot have the effect of setting aside the condition in question, expressly laid down in the Treaty, without going beyond the jurisdiction conferred by the Treaty on the Community Courts.

(see paras 52-53)