Keywords
Summary

Keywords

Actions for annulment ° Natural or legal persons ° Measures of direct or individual concern to them ° Regulation establishing the value of the final regional reference amounts for certain oilseeds ° Proceedings brought by colza producers ° Inadmissibility

(EEC Treaty, Art. 173, second para.; Commission Regulation No 525/93)

Summary

The action brought by Bavarian colza producers for annulment of Regulation No 525/93 establishing the value of the final regional reference amounts for producers of soya beans, rape seed, colza seed and sunflower seed for the 1992/93 marketing year is inadmissible.

That regulation must be regarded as a measure of general application directed, on a general and abstract basis, to all the producers concerned, since each of the three factors on the basis of which the said amounts are established is determined on the basis of data of a general and abstract nature, without taking any account of the situation of individual producers. The position is the same as regards the final regional reference amount fixed for Bavaria.

Whilst it is true that those producers in fact formed part, at the time when that regulation was adopted, of a fixed number of producers, namely those who had sown the seed for the harvest in question, lodged an application containing the data and declarations required, submitted a harvest declaration and received an advance payment, that "closed class" results from the very nature of the system established by Regulation No 3766/91 establishing a support system for producers of the seeds concerned, and concerns those producers no differently from all other oilseed producers in the same situation.

Moreover, the mere fact that those producers lodged the necessary applications and declarations, and that they were already in receipt of an advance payment, is not such as to establish that their specific rights have been adversely affected to such an extent that they must be regarded as individually concerned, since, first, prior to the adoption of Regulation No 525/93, they had not acquired any right to the direct payment of a precise total amount and, second, their legal situation did not differ from that of all the other Community producers to whom that regulation applied.