Opinion of Mr advocate-general Roemer delivered on 9 February 1965

1 Translated from the German.

2 Cf. Rabe: Das Verordnungsrecht der Europäischen Wirtschaftsgemeinschaft, Hamburg, 1963, pp. 30 et seq.:As a general rule the provisions of a regulation will concern natural and legal persons in the Member States. However this does not exclude the possibility that the contents of a regulation may be addressed to the Member States themselves or to the institutions of the Community. It has indeed been argued that a legal measure can no longer be described as a regulation when it creates rights and obligations solely for Member States and institutions of the Community. To this it must be added that directives and decisions are the means laid down by the Treaty for such cases and they are in general sufficient for enabling the objectives sought by the Community to be attained. However a discussion along over-rigid lines is not called for here. It might often be very difficult to decide when a provision only concerns Member States as such or their subjects; one may start by saying that individuals are also concerned when the direct obligation on Member States towards the Community creates derived rights for them (Reflexrechte). It is more important to discover whether a Community rule prescribes obligations erga omnes and whether it is intended for the future to be substituted for the rules or divergent administrative practices of the various Member States. When the creation of a network of obligations between States thus creates objective and general Community law, while not creating obligations only concerning relations between the Member States and the Community, it is certain that such a legal measure must be classed as a regulation.