Keywords

Summary



Keywords

1. Actions for annulment — Natural or legal persons — Measures of direct and individual concern to them — Regulation concerning biocidal products — Action brought by a producer — Inadmissible — (Art. 230, fourth para., EC; Commission Regulation No 1896/2000)

2. Actions for annulment — Natural or legal persons — Measures of direct and individual concern to them — Directive on biocidal products — Directive not capable of identifying a producer of biocidal products for the purposes of the regulation concerning such products — (Art. 230, fourth para., EC; Commission Regulation No 1896/2000; Directive 98/8 of the European Parliament and of the Council)

3. Actions for annulment — Natural or legal persons — Proceedings for annulment before the Community Court where there is an insurmountable obstacle deriving from national rules of procedure — Excluded — (Art. 230, fourth para., EC)

Summary

1. The fact that Regulation No 1896/2000 on the first phase of the programme referred to in Article 16(2) of Directive 98/8 of the European Parliament and of the Council on biocidal products allows all producers and formulators to continue or to begin marketing existing active substances and biocidal products containing those substances for the product type(s) for which the Commission has accepted at least one notification does not appear to be inconsistent with the fact that that regulation is addressed to all those who have an interest in the identification and notification of existing active substances and biocidal products containing those substances and not only operators who placed a biocidal product containing such substances on the market before 14 May 2000. It cannot be inferred from those two facts that the Court of First Instance drew a distinction between the abstract category comprising all those operators who have an interest in identification and notification and that made up of the ascertained and closed group of companies whose notification was accepted by the Commission, with the result that notifiers should have been regarded as individually concerned by the said regulation.

In that connection, a measure of general application such as a regulation can be of individual concern to natural and legal persons only if it affects them by reason of certain attributes peculiar to them, or by reason of a factual situation which differentiates them from all other persons and distinguishes them individually in the same way as the addressee. However, on the date of its adoption, Regulation No 1896/2000 was in principle capable of applying to an indeterminate number of economic operators with an interest in notification and not to a closed category thereof whose notifications had been accepted by the Commission.

see paras 33-34

2. Recital 23 in the preamble to Directive 98/8 on biocidal products does not confer procedural rights on a producer of biocidal products in the context of the procedure for the adoption of Regulation No 1896/2000 on the first phase of the programme referred to in Article 16(2) of that directive. That recital merely states that the implementation of the directive, the adaptation of its annexes to developments in technical and scientific knowledge and the inclusion of active substances in the appropriate annexes necessitate close cooperation between the Commission, the Member States and applicants and that, in the event of its application, the procedure of the Standing Committee on Biocidal Products provides an appropriate basis for such cooperation. In any event, such a recital is not in any event capable of distinguishing the appellant individually in relation to the said regulation.

see para. 44

3. A direct action for annulment could not be brought before the Community Court even if it could be shown, following an examination by that Court of the national procedural rules, that those rules do not allow an individual to bring proceedings to contest the validity of the Community measure at issue. Such an approach would require the Community Court, in each individual case, to examine and interpret national procedural law, which would go beyond its jurisdiction when reviewing the legality of Community measures.

see para. 58