Court of Justice of the European Communities (including Court of First Instance Decisions)

Actions for annulment - Natural or legal persons - Measures of direct and individual concern to them - Regulation introducing a fixed date for the determination of the rate of conversion into national currency of the premium for tobacco from harvests prior to 1993
(EC Treaty, Art. 173, fourth para., and Art. 189; Commission Regulation No 3477/93, Art. 5, Art. 6, first indent, and Art. 7, second para.)

An action for annulment brought by tobacco processing undertakings established in Greece challenging Article 5, Article 6, first indent, and Article 7, second paragraph, of Regulation No 3477/93 concerning the agricultural conversion rates to be applied in the tobacco sector is inadmissible in so far as the said provisions provide that, in the case of tobacco from harvests prior to 1993 leaving the place in which it was under supervision on 1 July 1993 or later, the rate to be applied for the conversion into national currency of the premium for leaf tobacco is the rate applicable on 1 July 1993.
On the one hand, the regulation appears to be a measure having general application, within the meaning of Article 189 of the Treaty. It applies to objectively determined situations and produces legal effects with respect to categories of persons envisaged generally and in the abstract, namely all traders active in the tobacco sector who, within the Community, have brought under supervision tobacco from harvests prior to the 1993 harvest and whose tobacco had not been removed from supervision by 1 July 1993.
On the other hand, whilst, in certain circumstances, even a legislative measure which applies to the traders concerned in general may be of individual concern to some of them provided that it affects them by reason of certain attributes which are peculiar to them or by reason of circumstances in which they are differentiated from all other persons, that is not so in the present case.
Specifically, the fact that the number or even the identities of the persons to whom a measure applies at any given time may be ascertained more or less precisely is not sufficient to call into question the general application, and thus the legislative nature, of that measure and by no means implies that it must be regarded as being of individual concern to those persons as long as it is established that the measure is applicable as a result of an objective legal or factual situation which the measure defines with reference to its purpose.
In this connection, the traders concerned form a mixed group comprised of purchasers and producers of tobacco established in seven Member States, giving seven distinct relationships between the ecu and national currency. The fact that the provisions at issue may have different material effects for the various persons to whom they apply, namely traders established in a country with a less stable currency, such as Greece, or traders established in a country with a strong currency, is not in itself inconsistent with their legislative nature if that situation is objectively determined.