Joined Cases T-392/03, T-408/03, T-414/03 and T-435/03

Regione Siciliana

v

Commission of the European Communities

(Actions for annulment – ERDF – Withdrawal of financial assistance – Recovery of amounts already paid – Claims for payment of default interest – Set-off – Regional or local body – Not of direct concern – Inadmissibility)

Summary of the Order

1.      Actions for annulment – Actionable measures – Definition – Measures producing binding legal effects

(Art. 230 EC)

2.      Actions for annulment – Natural or legal persons – Measures of direct and individual concern to them

(Art. 230, fourth para., EC)

1.      Only acts the legal effects of which are binding on, and capable if affecting the interests of, the applicant by bringing about a distinct change in his legal position are acts which may be the subject of an action for annulment within the meaning of Article 230 EC.

Letters from the Commission concerning the charging of default interest on charge notices which concern a Member State and are addressed to that Member State, which do not in themselves constitute a claim for payment of default interest or calculate the actual amount of any such interest and which merely set out the relevant Community rules concerning the calculation of that interest and state why the Commission did not of its own motion offset the receivables shown in the charge notices in question against the payments intended for the Member State, do not produce legal effects such as to affect the interests of the applicant.

(see paras 36-39)

2.      A letter by which the Commission announces that certain receivables, including amounts to be reimbursed and default interest following the withdrawal of financial assistance from the European Regional Development Fund for certain projects the ultimate recipient of which was a regional body, are to be offset against debts owed to the Commission by a Member State, although formally addressed by the Commission to that regional body, and copied, for informational purposes, the Ministry of the Economy and Finance of the Member State in question, constitutes a decision the actual addressee of which is the Member State.

The Member State is the holder of those debts and receivables and, furthermore, has discretion and may decide not to claim from that regional body total or partial reimbursement of the sums stated in that letter, both as regards the principal and the default interest.

Consequently, that decision cannot be regarded as being of direct concern to that regional body and its action must be dismissed as inadmissible.

(see paras 43-47)