Opinion of Mr Advocate General Mancini

Mr President,

Members of the Court,

1. This Opinion concerns the application lodged on 18 July 1984 by les Verts — parti écologiste against the European Parliament for the annulment of all the decisions implementing item 3708 of the 1984 general budget of the European Communities.

2. The present case follows directly from the one which gave rise to the judgment to which I have just referred. In that case les Verts challenged the decisions of the organs of the Parliament laying down the basic rules for the application of item 3708; in this case, they challenge the decisions taken by the administration of the Parliament implementing those rules.

3. It should be recalled that by an interlocutory application lodged on 2 October 1984 the European Parliament raised an objection of inadmissibility. The Parliament requested that the Court rule on the objection without examining the substance of the case; by an order of 28 November 1984, however, the Court reserved its decision on the objection until final judgment.

4. Let me turn, then, to the second group of arguments, leaving aside those (such as the impossibility of challenging acts of the Parliament under the first paragraph of Article 173) which have been superseded by cases decided since the proceedings were brought. In support of its objection of inadmissibility the Parliament makes the following arguments:

5. The following four objections are based on the assertion that the conditions under which applications may be made by private parties pursuant to Article 173 have not been met. According to the second paragraph of Article 173, a natural or legal person may bring proceedings for annulment only against a decision addressed to that person or against a decision which, although in the form of a regulation or a decision addressed to another person, is of direct and individual concern to the former.

6. Let me make a preliminary observation before examining the views which I have just summarized. Along with a number of individual measures les Verts have challenged various accounting measures implementing the budget, and I think it must be determined whether an action will lie in respect of the latter measures. In this case the Parliament takes the view that those measures were taken in implementation of the decision of the Secretary-General of 4 October 1984 and that that decision is now final and irrevocable; it therefore submits that the claim is inadmissible in respect of them. As a matter of general principle, however, it states that inasmuch as an administrative decision may be breached by the manner in which it is carried out from the acccounting point of view it would be illogical if the Court could not examine the latter stage.

7. I therefore propose that the Court declare inadmissible the action brought on 18 July 1984 by the Association les Verts — parti écologiste against the European Parliament; costs should be awarded to the successful party.

1 Translated from the Italian.

2 Kopp, Verwaltungsverfahrensgesetz, third edition, Munich, 1983, paragraphs 25 to 44; Vander Stichele, De l'exécution des decisions juridictionnelles in Recueil de jurisprudence du droit administratif et du Conseil d'État, 1975, p. 10 et seq.; Weil, Des conséquences de l'annulation d'un acte administratif par excès de pouvoir, Paris, 1952, p. 198 et seq.; Sandulli, Manuale di Diritto Amministrativo, Naples, 1984, p. 1431 et seq.