Regione Siciliana v Commission of the European Communities.
Date: 2007-03-22
29. On the basis of the fourth paragraph of Article 230 EC, a local or regional entity may, to the extent that it has – like the Regione Siciliana – legal personality under national law, institute proceedings against a decision addressed to it or against a decision which, although in the form of a regulation or a decision addressed to another person, is of direct and individual concern to it (see Case C‑452/98 Nederlandse Antillen  v Council  [2001] ECR I‑8973, paragraph 51; Case C‑142/00 P Commission  v Nederlandse Antillen  [2003] ECR I‑3483, paragraph 59; and Case C‑417/04 P Regione Siciliana  v Commission  [2006] ECR I‑3881, paragraph 24).
31. In accordance with settled case-law, the condition that the decision forming the subject-matter of the proceedings must be of direct concern to a natural or legal person, as laid down in the fourth paragraph of Article 230 EC, requires the contested Community measure to affect directly the legal situation of the individual and leave no discretion to its addressees, who are entrusted with the task of implementing it, such implementation being purely automatic and resulting from Community rules without the application of other intermediate rules (see, in particular, Case C‑404/96 P Glencore Grain  v Commission  [1998] ECR I‑2435, paragraph 41; Case C‑486/01 P National Front  v Parliament  [2004] ECR I‑6289, paragraph 34; and Regione Siciliana  v Commission , paragraph 28).
32. As the Court of Justice has already held at paragraphs 29 and 30 of its judgment in Regione Siciliana  v Commission , the designation of a regional or local entity such as the Regione Siciliana as the authority responsible for the implementation of an ERDF project does not imply that that entity is itself entitled to assistance. According to the Court, nothing in the documents in the case giving rise to that judgment supports the conclusion that the appellant was directly concerned within the meaning of the fourth paragraph of Article 230 EC in its capacity as the authority responsible for the implementation of the project.
33. The Court went on to say that that analysis is not weakened by the first subparagraph of Article 4(1) of Regulation No 2052/88 and Article 9(1) of Regulation No 4253/88. In fact, those articles, which set out the principle that Community financial assistance is complementary to national assistance, are not relevant to cases in which the Commission has closed financial assistance ( Regione Siciliana  v Commission , paragraph 31).
36. The fact that, in the annex to the decision to grant, the Regione Siciliana is referred to as the authority responsible for the application for financial assistance is also without relevance even though, in the case which Regione Siciliana  v Commission  decided, it was referred to as the authority responsible for the implementation of the project. In fact, the position of ‘authority responsible for the application’, to which the annex to the decision to grant refers, does not have the effect of putting the appellant in a direct relationship with the Community assistance, which the same decision states moreover was applied for by the Italian Government and granted to the Italian Republic.
39. Contrary to the appellant’s assertion, that conclusion does not constitute a denial of justice. In that regard, it is sufficient to bear in mind that individuals are entitled to effective judicial protection of the rights they derive from the Community legal order (see Case C‑263/02 P Commission  v Jégo-Quéré  [2004] ECR I‑3425, paragraph 29 and the case‑law cited). The judicial protection of natural or legal persons who are unable, by reason of the conditions for admissibility laid down in the fourth paragraph of Article 230 EC, to challenge directly Community measures of the kind in the present case, must be guaranteed effectively by a right of action before national courts. Those are required, in accordance with the principle of cooperation in good faith laid down by Article 10 EC, so far as possible, to interpret and apply national procedural rules governing the exercise of rights of action in a way that enables those persons to challenge before the courts the legality of any decision or other national measure relative to the application to them of a Community act such as that at issue, by pleading the invalidity of such an act and by asking them to make a reference to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling on validity ( Commission  v Jégo-Quéré , paragraphs 30 to 32 and the case‑law cited).
Admissibility of the Regione Siciliana’s action