Keywords
Summary

Keywords

Actions for annulment - Natural or legal persons - Measures of direct and individual concern to them - Commission decision, addressed to a Member State, finding that a particular grant of aid is incompatible with the common market - Action brought by the regional authority which had granted the aid - Whether admissible

(EC Treaty, Art. 173, fourth para. (now, after amendment, Art. 230, fourth para., EC)

Summary

$$The purpose of the fourth paragraph of Article 173 of the Treaty (now, after amendment, Article 230 EC) is to provide appropriate judicial protection for all persons, natural or legal, who are directly and individually concerned by acts of the Community institutions. Standing to bring an action must accordingly be recognised in the light of that purpose alone and the action for annulment must therefore be available to all those who fulfil the objective conditions prescribed, that is to say, those who possess the requisite legal personality and are directly and individually concerned by the contested act. This must also be the approach where the applicant is a public entity which satisfies those criteria.

A regional authority is individually concerned by a Commission decision, addressed to the Member State, finding that an aid programme set up by that authority is incompatible with the common market. This is because such a decision not only affects measures adopted by the authority in question, but also prevents the authority from exercising its own powers as it sees fit. It prevents the authority from continuing to apply the associated legislation, nullifies the effects of that legislation and requires the authority to initiate the administrative procedure for recovery of the aid. The regional authority is directly concerned by such a decision where the national authorities to whom it was addressed did not act in the exercise of a discretion when communicating it to the regional authority.

Furthermore, a regional authority has a separate interest in challenging the decision, distinct from that of the Member State addressed, where it possesses rights and interests of its own and the aid in question constitutes a set of measures taken in the exercise of legislative and financial autonomy vested in the authority directly under the constitution of the Member State concerned.