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Actions for annulment - Natural or legal persons - Measures of direct and individual concern to them - Regulation concerning the entry of certain names in the `Register of protected designations of origin and protected geographical indications' - Action brought by a producer marketing products under names entered in that register, who has lodged with the national authorities an objection to their registration - Inadmissible
(Arts 226 EC, 230 EC and 249, second para., EC; Council Regulation No 2081/92, Art. 7; Commission Regulation No 378/1999)
$$An action for annulment - brought by a producer of various varieties of cider marketed under various names comprising the indication `Pays d'Auge' - in respect of Regulation No 378/1999 supplementing the Annex to Regulation No 2400/96 on the entry of certain names in the `Register of protected designations of origin and protected geographical indications' provided for in Regulation No 2081/92 in so far as it registers the names `Pays d'Auge/Pays d'Auge-Cambremer' as a protected designation of origin, is inadmissible.
That legislation is a measure of general application within the meaning of the second paragraph of Article 249 EC, since, in giving all undertakings whose products meet the prescribed geographical and quality requirements the right to market them under one of the names in question and in refusing that right to undertakings whose products do not satisfy those conditions, which are identical for all producers, it applies to objectively determined situations and produces legal effects with respect to persons envisaged generally and in the abstract.
Although certain rules which, by virtue of their nature and scope, are of a legislative character may be of individual concern to natural or legal persons, that is not the position in this context. The fact that the applicant controls a large part of the market in question is not in itself enough to differentiate it from any other trader affected by the contested regulation, and its use of the geographical name on which it relies does not constitute the exercise of a specific right which was acquired at national or Community level before the adoption of the contested regulation and which the regulation affected.
Also, the fact that the applicant sent a duly substantiated statement to the competent authority of the Member State in which it is established, objecting to the registration of the name in question - an objection which was not forwarded to the Commission - is not sufficient to establish the admissibility of its action.
Under the scheme for registering objections established by Regulation No 2081/92, the procedural safeguards expressly afforded to individuals fall exclusively within the scope of responsibility of the Member States and do not involve the exercise of any power of assessment on the part of the Commission. This means that no specific procedural safeguards have been established at Community level for individuals. Even if the competent national authority did infringe certain of the applicant's procedural rights by refusing to forward to the Commission the objection which the applicant had submitted, it does not follow that this action is admissible for that reason alone.
In an action brought under Article 230 EC, the Community judicature has no jurisdiction to rule on the lawfulness of a measure adopted by a national authority even if the measure in question forms part of a Community decision-making procedure, where it clearly follows from the division of powers in the field in question between the national authorities and the Community institutions that the measure adopted by the national authority is binding on the Community decision-taking authority and therefore determines the terms of the Community decision to be adopted. Accordingly, subject to the possibility of bringing proceedings before the Court of Justice under Article 226 EC, it is for the national courts alone, where appropriate after obtaining a preliminary ruling from the Court, to rule on the lawfulness of the national measure at issue and on the possible liability of the Member State if it is claimed that the measure has caused loss.
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