Keywords

Summary



Keywords

1. Actions for annulment — Natural or legal persons — Measures of direct and individual concern to them — Council Directive 2002/10 amending Directives 92/79, 92/80 and 95/59 as regards the structure and rates of excise duty applied on manufactured tobacco — Amendment of the definition of cigars and cigarillos — Action by a company manufacturing and marketing the products concerned by that amendment — Inadmissible — (Art. 230, fourth para., EC; Council Directive 2002/10, Arts 3, point 1, and 4(2), first indent)

2. European Communities — Judicial review of the legality of the acts of the institutions — Acts of general scope — Need for natural or legal persons to use the objection of illegality or a reference for a preliminary ruling seeking assessment of validity — Bringing of an action for annulment before the Community judicature where reference for a preliminary ruling ineffective — Excluded — (Arts 230, fourth para., EC, 234 EC and 241 EC)

Summary

1. For natural and legal persons to be regarded as individually concerned by a measure, it must affect their legal position 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.

A company which manufactures and markets in Member States including Germany, and in non-member countries, products which, for the purpose of determining the rate of excise duty applicable, were previously deemed to be cigars or cigarillos as defined in Article 3 of Directive 95/59, but which must henceforth be regarded under the amending Directive 2002/10 as cigarettes, the sale of which is subject to a far higher minimum excise duty than that applicable to cigars and cigarillos, is not individually concerned either by Article 3, point 1, of Directive 2002/10 amending Directives 92/79/EEC, 92/80/EEC and 95/59/EC as regards the structure and rates of excise duty applied on manufactured tobacco which alters the definition of cigars and cigarillos provided under Article 3 of Directive 95/59, or by the first indent of Article 4(2) of Directive 2002/10 which allows Germany a derogation from the time-limit for transposition of that Article 3, point 1.

Those provisions of Directive 2002/10 concern that applicant company only by reason of its capacity as an economic operator active in the sector of manufacturing the products in question, in the same way as any other Community economic operator in the same situation. The amendment of the definition of cigars and cigarillos arising from Article 3, point 1, of Directive 2002/10 will affect not only the manufacturers of the products concerned but also all economic operators active in marketing them as well as consumers. The mere fact that in the preparation of a measure of general application, the Community legislature takes account of the fact that such a measure may have greater economic repercussions for certain categories of economic operators is not sufficient to characterise the latter in relation to other operators, because it is common ground that the measure concerns them in their objective capacity as economic operators present in the market in question.

see paras 43-47, 51, 54

2. The fact that a reference for a preliminary ruling seeking an assessment of the validity of a Community measure of general scope would not be effective cannot justify changing, by judicial action, the system of remedies and procedures established by Articles 230, 234 and 241 EC, which is designed to give the Community judicature the power to review the legality of acts of the institutions. Such a circumstance cannot in any event allow an action for annulment brought by a natural or legal person who does not satisfy the conditions laid down by the fourth paragraph of Article 230 EC to be declared admissible.

see para. 61