Keywords

Summary



Keywords

1 Actions for annulment - Actionable measures - Definition - Measures producing binding legal effects - Letter from a Commission department to the national authorites responsible for implementing Community rules in the context of a common organisation of the market (EC Treaty, Art. 173; Council Regulations Nos 136/66 and 729/70, Arts 4 and 5) 2 Actions for annulment - Natural or legal persons - Measures of direct and individual concern to them - Direct concern - Payment by the EAGGF of expenditure relating to operations carried out in the context of a common organisation of the market - Letter, expressing opinions at the stage prior to clearance of accounts, from a Commission department to the national authorities responsible for implementing Community rules (EC Treaty, Art. 173, fourth para.) 3 Actions for damages - Independent of actions for annulment - Inadmissibility of an action for annulment of a Community measure - No effect on the admissibility of an action seeking compensation for damage caused by the unlawful conduct of the institution which adopted the contested measure (EC Treaty, Arts 173, 178 and 215, second para.) 4 Non-contractual liability - Conditions - Unlawfulness - Damage - Causal link - Damage caused, on implementation of Community rules, by a national authority and attributable thereto - Lack of jurisdiction of Community judicature (EC Treaty, Arts 178 and 215, second para.)

Summary

1 Only measures which produce binding legal effects such as to affect directly an applicant's interests by changing his legal position significantly are acts or decisions challengeable by an action for annulment. In order to assess whether a letter signed by a Director-General of the Commission and formally addressed to a Member State and its national authorities, but not to the applicant, is such a measure, the wording of the letter must be interpreted in the light of the factual and legal context in which it was drafted and notified to the national authorities. In that connection, a letter which only contains proposals put forward to those authorities in order to settle a dispute arising out of a Community investigation and the request that they block in the meantime any payment or deposit in respect of stocks of olive oil subject to intervention under the common organisation of the market in oils and fats cannot be of a decisional nature. Since both the implementation of Community provisions relating to the common market organisations and the mobilisation of the means necessary to finance the common agricultural policy are the responsibility of the national bodies appointed for those purposes, the Commission's services have no authority to take decisions to implement those provisions or grant such financing. They may only express their opinion, which is not binding on the national authorities, and decide, when the annual accounts are cleared, on the payment by the EAGGF of the expenditure incurred by the State intervention agencies. 2 A Community measure can only directly affect the legal position of an individual, and thus entitle him to bring an action against it under the fourth paragraph of Article 173 of the Treaty, if that measure leaves no discretion to its addressees entrusted with the task of implementing it, such implementation being purely automatic and resulting from Community rules alone. The same applies where the possibility for addressees not to give effect to the Community measure is purely theoretical and their intention to act in conformity with it is not in doubt. As regards the payment by the EAGGF of expenditure relating to intervention operations in the context of a common organisation of the market, mere opinions issued by the Commission's departments to national authorities during the informal stage prior to the clearance of accounts which are merely preparatory to the Commission's final decision are not of direct concern, within the meaning of the fourth paragraph of Article 173, to a trader. 3 The action for damages provided for by Article 178 and the second paragraph of Article 215 of the Treaty was meant to be an autonomous form of action with a particular purpose to fulfil within the system of remedies provided for, so that the inadmissibility of a claim for annulment cannot, on its own, entail the inadmissibility of a claim for reparation of damage allegedly suffered through the unlawful conduct of the institution, which includes the adoption of the contested measure. 4 If the Community is to incur non-contractual liability, it is necessary to prove that a number of conditions regarding the illegality of the conduct of which the Community institutions are accused are met, that the alleged damage is real and that there is a causal link between that conduct and the alleged damage. In that connection, the Community judicature has no jurisdiction to award compensation for damage caused by a decision of a national authority responsible for ensuring the implementation of Community rules on the common agricultural policy, since that decision cannot be attributed to the conduct of the Commission's services in their informal cooperation with the national authorities but is due to a deliberate and independent choice by those authorities.