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 concerning the registration of geographical indications and designations of origin under the procedure provided for in Article 17 of Regulation No 2081/92 - Action brought by producers of `tourons' - Inadmissible
(EC Treaty, Arts 173, fourth para., and 189, fourth para.; Council Regulation No 2081/92; Commission Regulation No 1107/96)

The action brought by `touron' producers established in France for annulment of Regulation No 1107/96 on the registration of geographical indications and designations of origin under the procedure laid down in Article 17 of Regulation No 2081/92 in so far as it registers the names `Jijona' and `Turrón de Alicante' as protected geographical indications, is inadmissible.
Regulation No 1107/96 is, by nature and by virtue of its sphere of application, of a legislative nature and does not constitute a decision within the meaning of the fourth paragraph of Article 189 of the Treaty, since it applies to objectively determined situations and produces its legal effects with respect to categories of persons envisaged in the abstract, in conferring on any undertaking whose products fulfil the prescribed geographical and qualitative requirements the right to market them under one of the names specified, and in denying that right to any undertaking whose products do not fulfil those conditions.
Although it is conceivable that, in certain circumstances, even a legislative measure applying to traders in general may be of individual concern to particular traders, that is not the position in the present case. The mere fact that the undertakings have used names such as `Jijona' or `Alicante' for the marketing of the `tourons' that they produce is not sufficient to distinguish them in the absence of any other evidence enabling it to be established that such use stems from a similar specific right which they acquired at national or Community level before the adoption of the contested regulation and which has been adversely affected by that regulation.