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set aside the order of the General Court of 5 November 2024 in Case T-1194/23 APC Europe and Others v Commission;

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refer the case back to the General Court of the European Union to rule on the appellants’ actions for annulment of the decision at issue;

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order the Commission to pay the costs.

1.

First ground of appeal: infringement and misinterpretation of Article 263 TFEU; failure to rule on the admissibility of part of the action; distortion of the content of the decision at issue and of the arguments put forward by the appellants; infringement of the obligation to state reasons; infringement and misinterpretation of the second sentence of Article 7(2) of Regulation No 178/2002; infringement of the right to effective judicial protection and of Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

By the first ground of appeal, the appellants claim, in essence, that by failing to rule on the admissibility of the part of the action directed against the Commission’s decision not to review the absolute prohibition in the light of the new scientific evidence available, in breach of the obligation to act within a reasonable period of time imposed on it under the second sentence of Article 7(2) of Regulation No 178/2002, the General Court infringed Article 263 TFEU, the second sentence of Article 7(2) of Regulation No 178/2002, the right to effective judicial protection and Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, making other errors of law and distorting the content of the decision at issue and some of the appellants’ arguments. The ground of appeal is subdivided into three parts. By the first part, in the light of the Court’s settled case-law on the requirement to examine the ‘substance’ of the measure in question, the appellants complain that the General Court failed to rule on the admissibility of the part of the action directed against the aforementioned Commission decision. The second part concerns the General Court’s failure to take into account the Commission’s powers and obligations and, in particular, the fact that that institution had no discretion as to whether it was required to review the prohibition. The third part concerns the failure to rule on the binding legal effects produced by the decision in question.

2.

Second ground of appeal: infringement and misinterpretation of Article 263 TFEU, Articles 23 and 24 of Regulation No 999/2001, read in the light of recital 20 of that regulation, Articles 5(2) and 7(2) of Regulation No 178/2002 and the relevant recitals of the latter; failure to rule on the decisive grounds; distortion of the content of the decision at issue and of the appellants’ arguments; infringement of the obligation to state reasons; infringement and misinterpretation of Articles 8a, 8b and 8c of Regulation No 178/2002; infringement of the right to effective judicial protection and of Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

By the second ground of appeal, the appellants submit, in essence, that the General Court infringed and misinterpreted Article 263 TFEU, Articles 23 and 24 of Regulation No 999/2001, read in the light of Regulation No 178/2002, as well as Articles 8a, 8b and 8c of Regulation No 178/2002, the right to effective judicial protection and Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, also distorting the content of the decision at issue and making other errors of law by (i) finding that the decision at issue constitutes merely a position adopted in relation to a purely preliminary measure; and (ii) holding that the Commission always has the power to review prohibitions in the area of animal feed, whereas the appellants, who are operators subject to a prohibition which has been in force for an excessively long period of time, without the institution having complied with the obligation to review within a reasonable time period, have no right to request the initiation of the regulatory procedure with scrutiny for the amendment or lifting of the prohibition. The ground of appeal is subdivided into four parts. By the first part, the appellants criticise the order under appeal in which it was held – in breach of Article 263 TFEU and on the basis of a misinterpretation of Articles 22 and 23 of Regulation No 999/2001 carried out without regard to the context and without taking into account the Court’s settled case-law – that the decision at issue constituted merely a position adopted in relation to a purely preliminary measure. By the second part, the appellants claim that the General Court failed to rule on the legal effects produced from the position adopted by the Commission in the decision at issue. By the third part, the appellants complain that the General Court erred in law by holding that the case-law cited in the order under appeal applied by analogy and, in any event, by not drawing the necessary consequences from the case-law as regards the admissibility of the action and therefore infringing Article 263 TFEU, the right to effective judicial protection and Article 47 of the Charter, read in the light of Articles 6 and 13 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights. Lastly, by the fourth part, the appellants claim that the General Court made an error of law in holding that the rights accorded to feed business operators by Articles 8a, 8b and 8c of Regulation No 178/2002 did not constitute procedural guarantees in the context of the review of a prohibition imposed under Regulation No 999/2001.