Keywords
Summary

Keywords

1. Actions for annulment – Natural or legal persons – Action brought by a regional authority

(Art. 230, paras 2 and 4, EC)

2. Actions for annulment – Natural or legal persons – Measures of direct and individual concern to them

(Art. 230, para. 4, EC; Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Art. 113)

Summary

1. An action by a local or regional entity cannot be treated in the same way as an action by a Member State, the term Member State within the meaning of the second paragraph of Article 230 EC referring only to government authorities of the Member States. That term cannot include the governments of regions or other local authorities within Member States without undermining the institutional balance provided for by the Treaty. On the basis of the fourth paragraph of Article 230 EC, however, a local or regional entity may, to the extent that it has 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.

In that respect, a regional authority which has been designated as the authority responsible for the execution of a European Regional Development Fund project cannot be regarded as directly concerned by a Commission decision, sent to the Member State concerned and relating to financial assistance from the Fund, refusing the application made by that State for an extension of the period for the submission of applications for definitive payment in respect of that aid and definitively closing that period.

(see paras 21, 24, 30)

2. The plea of inadmissibility based on the condition laid down in the fourth paragraph of Article 230 EC that proceedings brought by a natural or legal person against a decision not addressed to it are admissible only if the decision is of direct and individual concern to it raises an absolute bar to proceeding, so that the Community judicature may raise that plea of inadmissibility at any time, even of its own motion. Consequently, on the basis of Article 113 of its Rules of Procedure, the Court of First Instance may rule that an action is inadmissible for this reason even if an objection of inadmissibility has not been raised by separate document by one of the parties before it.

(see para. 36)