Il ricorso per annullamento ed i limiti alla tutela dei ricorrenti non privilegiati

The Annulment Proceeding and the Limits to the Protection of Individuals’ Right The essay focuses on the Locus Standi of Private Applicants under Article 263.4 TFEU and the limit to the Principle of Judicial Protection in the European Union system. In particular it highlights that notwithstanding the new formula of the norm of the Treaty, which introduces new rules of standing for private parties concerning “regulatory acts not entailing implementing measures”, there are still some grey areas in the protection of private parties under the annulment proceeding. After the analysis of the previous Article 230.3 TEC, and the position of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) which has refused to relax its approach to standing on various occasions, despite strong criticism from many quarters, the paper describes the origin and the reasons that leads the drafters of the Treaty of Lisbon to revise the article relating to the standing of private parties adding a third category to the existing two (addressee, party directly and individually concerned): a natural or legal person may challenge “a regulatory act which is of direct concern to them and does not entail implementing measures”. Due to the lack of definitions, the effect that the revision has on applicants depends on the judicial interpretation of the provision. The notion of these acts had raised doubts until the General Court has given a definition in case Inuit in October 2013. Before the judgment of ECJ the EU Tribunal in cases Inuit and Microban defined the “regulatory acts” as general non-legislative acts on the basis of a formal point of view. The ECJ had a chance to adopt in the appeal in Inuit a more extensive approach, but it did not. The issue raised a great debate among scholars too, dividing them between those who advocate a wider definition of “regulatory acts”, and the ones who support the ECJ interpretation. This essay will present criticisms of the latest definition set out by the ECJ and the overall effect of the new version of Article 263.4 TFEU that does not entail a general improvement for the right of access to justice for the citizens. Although the new formula stated in Article 263.4 has gone some way to alleviate the previous problems the restrictive interpretation of ‘regulatory act’ has limited its success preserving gaps in the protection of individuals’ right to an effective remedy.