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What Has Been, and What Could Be Thirty Years after Les Verts/European
Parliament: Individual Access to EU Justice

Article · February 2010

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What Has Been, and What Could Be,
Thirty Years after Les Verts/European
Parliament

ALBERTO ALEMANNO202

Introduction

The Les Verts judgment went down history not only as the first judicial recognition of the
Community as ‘a Community based on the rule of law’203 but also because it identified
within it ‘a complete system of legal remedies’.204 While the former statement turned out
to be a mere acknowledgment of a pre-existing reality, the latter proved more controver-
sial.
Thirty years after its delivery, this study proposes to analyse the role that this judgment
has played within the evolution of the Community remedies system, by provocatively
exploring whether the expectations which it has generated have been fully satisfied. In
other words, was the Court’s dictum a statement of fact, a prediction or a wish?

The Genesis

As is well known, the Court held in Les Verts that, despite the fact the European Parliament
did not appear in the list of potential defendants as laid down in Article 230 EC,205 it had
jurisdiction to entertain an action for annulment against the acts of the EP.
Contrary to what it might appear prima facie, the outcome reached by the Court in Les
Verts, though innovative, was not entirely surprising. The solution given had been not only

202
Associate Professor of Law, HEC Paris; formerly Legal Secretary at the European Court of Justice,
Luxembourg.
203
The Court referred again to the Community Treaty as a ‘constitutional charter’ in its Opinion 1/91, where
the Court distinguished the Treaty from the Agreement establishing the European Economic Area (EEA)
between the EC and its Member States on the one hand, and certain Member States of the EFTA (European Free
Trade Association) on the other hand. See Opinion of 14 December 1991, ECR 1991–10, at 6102.
204
Case 294/83 Les Verts [ECR] 1339, para 23.
205
It is by relying on this textual argument that several authors excluded that EP acts could be challenged
under Article 230. See, eg, G Vandersanden and A Barav, Contentieux communautaire, Brussels, 1977, 135 ff. This
textual argument was even strengthened by the fact that the ECSC, unlike the successive treaties, expressly
provided for the competence of the Court to annul, inter alia, an ‘act’ of the EP. See Article 38 ECSC.

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Alberto Alemanno

foreseen by several scholars,206 but it had also been anticipated by some previous
judgments recognising a more relevant role to the Parliament within the European system
of legal remedies.207 Yet, the most significant element proving this favor stems from the
same European Parliament’s line of defence: the EP did not even try to deny that in
principle a legal person, such as the applicant association was entitled to bring an action
for annulment against an act of the EP.208 This explains why the Court had to verify on its
own motion whether the conditions of Article 230 EC had been fulfilled.209
Even though this outcome was not only expected at that time but also convincingly
motivated by the concern to subject to review the action of the EP, following the conferral
of new powers,210 this did not prevent the judgment from being labelled a ‘judicial
revision’ of the Treaty.211 Yet, the judgment has also been welcomed as a further
manifestation of a judicial policy designed to achieve a wide interpretation of the Court’s
jurisdiction.212 This seems to show at best the very subtle line existing between the courts’
exercise of a legitimate gap-filling function and judicial activism.
But how did the Court end up making such ambitious claims in order to come to the
conclusion that an action for annulment may also be brought against the acts of the
Parliament? In particular, was it really necessary to underline that the EC is ‘a Community
based on the rule of law’ and that the Treaty establishes ‘a complete system of legal
remedies’ to come to this conclusion?
Today it might be tempting to argue that the Court could have convincingly come to the
same conclusion by limiting its answer to the reasoning developed in paragraphs 24 and
25. Here, by following closely the logical interpretative steps as suggested in Article 31 of
the Vienna Convention on the Law of the Treaties,213 it first easily overcomes the textual
argument opposing the admissibility of the action before engaging into a teleological
argument (‘both to the spirit of the Treaty … and to its system’) in order to finally
recognise its jurisdiction upon actions for annulment introduced against acts of the EP
intended to have legal effect vis-à-vis third parties.214 Yet, although this reasoning may well

206
P Pescatore, ‘Reconnaissance et contrôle des actes du Parlement européen’ (1978) Revue trimestrielle de
droit européen 581; JC Masclet, ‘Le Parlement européen devant ses juges’ (1983) Revue du marché commun 518.
See also the Editorial of the (1982) European Law Review 7.
207
Case 138/79 Roquette Frères [ECR] 3333 (right of the EP to intervene in an Art 230 procedure before the
Court); Case 208/80 Lord Bruce of Donington [ECR] 2205 (competence under Article 234 to interpret acts of the
EP); Case 13/83 Parliament/Council [ECR] 1513 (right of the EP to rely on actions for failure to act).
208
On the contrary, the EP strategically decided not to raise any objection to admissibility, by arguing that
political parties should be allowed to bring an action ‘against measures which determine under what conditions
and in what amount they are to receive, on the occasion of the direct elections, funds from the European
Parliament for the purpose of making the latter more widely know’. Para 30.
209
Para 19 of the judgment.
210
Initially, the EP could not take binding decisions, other than those concerning its own staff.
211
V Costantinesco and D Simon, Recueil Dalloz Sirey (1987) Jurisprudence 82 and J Jacqué, ‘Recours en
annulation, capagne d’information pour l’élection du Parlement européen’ (1986) Revue trimestrielle de droit
européen 503.
212
Ibid, 82. See H Schermers and D Waelbroeck, Judicial Protection in the European Union (Brussels, Kluwer,
2001) 309 ff, 409–10.
213
Article 31, para 1 (General rule of interpretation) establishes that ‘[A] treaty shall be interpreted in good
faith in accordance with the ordinary meaning to be given to the terms of the treaty in their context and in the
light of its object and purpose. On the role of this Treaty in the EC Courts’ interpretation, see A Rosas, The
European Court of Justice: sources of law and methods of interpretation and P Mengozzi, ‘The jurisprudence of the
Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance of the European Communities’ in G Sacerdoti, Y Yanovich, J
Boahnes, The WTO at Ten (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006).
214
Para 25 of the judgment.

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have been self-sufficient to validate the solution of the case at hand, the Court felt the need
to insert a further premise to its logic. Without such an extra argument this judgment
would have been likely to fall into oblivion.215 And this was not the kind of result expected
by its judge-rapporteur,216 who recently revealed that there was great awareness within the
Court that their answer to this point would have assured the judgment a place in the
annals of European Community law. This insider information, by contextualising this case
within its historical and sociological dimensions, seems to shed some light on the factors
that might have led the Court to strengthen its reasoning by adding its highly celebrated
(and often quoted217) meta-argument according to which, since the Community is based
on the rule of law, all its institutions must be subject to judicial review and to this end the
same Community established a ‘complete system of legal remedies’. But what would enable
the system to qualify as ‘complete’? According to the Court, the EC judicial system deserves
such a qualification because despite the fact that ‘natural and legal persons … cannot
contest general measures directly before the court by reason of the special conditions of
admissibility laid down in Article 173 … they may plead the invalidity of [these] measures
before the national courts and cause the latter to request the Court of Justice for a
preliminary ruling’.218
While it is debatable whether this last indication was strictly necessary to the solution of
the case at hand, the Court felt the need to illustrate (and to somehow prove) that its
previous statement relating to the completeness of the system was well grounded. This
illustration is crucial to the extent that it did not only unexpectedly acknowledge (though
impliedly) that Article 230 may not always be available to individuals, but it also showed,
for the first time, an alternative path aimed at ensuring individuals’ judicial protection
vis-à-vis acts of the institutions. In so doing, the Court identified Article 234’s preliminary
reference procedure as a viable solution to the problem raised by the strict conditions of
admissibility to Article 230. The Court’s case law on the interpretation of Article 230(4)
which encourages individual applicants to bring issues of validity of Community meas-
ures indirectly before the Court of Justice via the national courts was born.

Thirty Years of Les Verts in the Courts’ Case Law

This judicial statement, though ancillary to the solution of the present case, has had a
transformational effect on the EC remedies system, by shaping the scope of each specific
legal remedy and, accordingly, the mission entrusted to the EC Courts by Article 220. As
will be shown below, the EC Courts, because of the approach taken in Les Verts, have been
encouraged on several occasions to widen the limits of their own jurisdiction in order to
ensure the existence of a ‘complete system of legal remedies’. In other words, this judgment

215
This seems to be proved by the same Les Verts judgment in so far as its part relating to the substance of the
case has been completely overlooked. In the hope of rescuing this part of the judgment from oblivion, René Joliet
devoted an article to it in 1994 published in the European Law Review. See R Joliet, DT Keeling, ‘The
Reimbursement of Election Expenses: A Forgotten Dispute’ (1994) EL Rev 243 ff.
216
Ibid, at 244.
217
Les Verts has been quoted in more than 50 judgments and orders during the last 30 years.
218
Para 23. However, since in the present case the plaintiff could not raise the issue before national courts, the
Court felt obliged to reinterpret Article 230.

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has generated a powerful rhetoric of completeness which has enlightened (and still does)
the Courts’ discourse in relation to the interpretation of the scope of the different
Community legal remedies and the relationship existing among them.
Several judgments have thus contributed ‘to complete’ the system by better defining
every single legal remedy and allocating functions between the courts of the Member
States and the Court of Justice. Thus, for instance, in Foto-Frost the Court, facing ‘one of
the thorniest [question] it has ever had to tackle’,219 had to determine whether national
courts may, within the framework of a preliminary reference concerning the validity of
Community acts, declare these acts invalid.220 Although Article 234 EC does not settle this
question, but rather leaves open such an option, the Court denied that power by relying
on the principle of the uniform interpretation of Community law. Indeed, according to
the Court, to recognise such power would enable divergences between courts in the
Member States so as ‘to place in jeopardy the very unit of the Community legal order’.221
Under the rhetoric of completeness, this judgment has contributed to this ideal by filling
up a clear gap which had been clearly left behind by the drafters of the Treaty when
considering the relationship between Article 230 and 234 EC.222 Similarly, in European
Parliament v Council the Court, although expressly relying solely on the principle of
institutional balance, recognised, despite the silence of the Treaty, the capacity of the
European Parliament to bring an action for annulment.223 Once again the Court, by
showing its willingness to fill up a ‘legal vacuum’224 left by the drafters of the Treaty,
contributed to ‘complete’ the system of legal remedies. Paradoxically, however, to achieve
that result, it first had to acknowledge that ‘the various legal remedies provided [by the
Treaty], however effective and diverse they may be, may prove to be ineffective or
uncertain’ to guarantee that a measure by the Council or the Commission in disregard of
the Parliament’s prerogatives will be reviewed.225 The benchmark of completeness sanc-
tioned in Les Verts unquestionably required enabling also the Parliament to bring an
action for annulment.
A further stretch of the philosophy of completeness initiated in Les Verts may be found
in Johnston v Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary.226 Here the Court held that
persons aggrieved by actions or orders of national authorities encroaching on their rights
under EC law ‘have the right to obtain an effective remedy in a competent court’ and that
‘it is for the Member States to ensure effective judicial protection as regards compliance
with the applicable provisions of Community law’.227 The rhetoric of completeness
extends its argumentative strength as to lead the Court to impose also on Member States
the duty to ensure access to justice.
The same pattern of thought has enlightened a series of judgments which not only has
sanctioned the autonomy of each legal remedy but has also better defined the relation-
ships existing among them. Thus, for instance, because of the concurrent roles played by

219
Opinion of AG Mancini delivered on 19 May 1987 in Case 314/85 Foto-Frost [1987] ECR 4199, para 4.
220
Case 314/85 Foto-Frost [1987] ECR 4199.
221
Ibid, para 15.
222
AG Mancini, above note 219, para 4.
223
Case 302/87 Parliament v Council [1988] ECR 5615.
224
This is the term which has been used by the Parliament in its submission. See ibid, para 8.
225
Ibid, para 16.
226
Case 222/84 [1984] ECR 1651. See also Case 222/86 [1987] 4097, para 14.
227
Ibid, para 18.

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Article 230 actions for annulment and Article 234 preliminary reference procedures as to
the validity of EC acts, the Court has felt the need to determine their relationship. In TWD
Textilwerke Deggendorf228 the Court held that is not possible for the addressee of an EC act
who could undoubtedly have challenged that decision to call in question the lawfulness of
that decision before the national courts in an action brought against the measures taken
by the national authorities in implementation of that decision. As AG Jacobs had elegantly
said, ‘greater damage to the coherence of the system of remedies would be done if an
undertaking were allowed to challenge indirectly, under Article 177, a decision against
which the appropriate remedy is clearly a direct action under Article 173’.229 Once again, it
appears from this case that, despite the existence of a ‘complete system of legal remedies
and procedures’, the drafters of the Treaty clearly had not fully considered the relationships
existing between Article 230 and Article 234.
At the same time, the imperative of completeness building upon the idea according to
which Article 234 should be the solution to the problem raised by the strict conditions of
admissibility laid down by Article 230 has oriented the Courts in several other judgments.
As will be illustrated below, in these circumstances, the paradigm developed in Les Verts
(234 may compensate for the limits of 230) has been relied upon by the Courts in order to
justify its refusal to expand the interpretation of ‘direct and individual concern’ under
Article 230.
Thus, for instance, in Area Cova, in upholding a CFI order declaring inadmissible an
action for annulment introduced by a group of Spanish boat owners against a Community
regulation, the Court, in justifying its refusal of locus standi, held that ‘the possibility for
individuals to have their rights protected by means of an action before the national courts,
which have the power to grant interim relief and, where appropriate, to make a reference
for a preliminary ruling … constitutes the very essence of the Community system of judicial
protection’.230 Given that in the specific circumstances of the case it was impossible to bring
the matter before any Spanish court, in the absence of any national act of implementation,
this latter statement, though presenting itself as a linear application of Les Verts, sounded
rhetorical and empty.231
Therefore, while it is true that the approach undertaken in Les Verts has, on the one
hand, contributed to the widening of the Courts’ jurisdiction under Article 220, on the
other hand, it has also offered them an easy (and often unsatisfactorily) justification to
explain their refusal to expand the established interpretation of ‘direct and individual
concern’. As a result, by seeking in Article 234’s preliminary ruling procedure a solution to
the problem raised by the denial of effective direct access to judicial protection, this
judgment has not necessarily played in favour of a broader reading of the admissibility
criteria as laid down in Article 230(4). In particular, the rhetoric of completeness as laid
down in Les Verts combined with the very limited possibility to directly challenge EC

228
Case C-188/92 TWD Textilwerke Deggendorf v Germany [1994] ECR I-833, para 17. For a follow-up of this
case law, see also Case C-491/01 British American Tobacco (Investments) Ltd and Imperial Tobacco Ltd (‘BAT’)
[2002] ECR I-11453, paras 39–41, and, more recently, Case C-432/05 Unibet (London) Ltd and Unibet
(International) Ltd (‘Unibet’), ECR 2271, paras 40–41.
229
Opinion of AG Jacobs delivered on 15 September 1993 in TWD, para 20.
230
Case C-3/00 P Area Cova v Council [2001] ECR 983 and Case C-301/99 P, Area Cova v Commission [2001]
ECR 1005, para 54.
231
See also Case 321/95 P Stichting Greenpeace Council (Greenpeace International) v Commission [1998] ECR
1651, paras 32 and 33.

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normative acts before EC Courts, had instead contributed to channel the judicial review of
EC acts through Article 234 EC’s preliminary ruling procedure. Seen under this perspec-
tive, the role played by Les Verts does not seem to have necessarily advanced the principle
of effective judicial protection and that insofar as judicial review under Article 234 is
much less effective than under Article 230 EC. This is because the preliminary reference
procedure presents several drawbacks as compared to the action for annulment. Judicial
review under the former is not only slow and indirect but also entirely at the mercy, at
least in practice, of the national court as to whether the question will be referred to the
Court. Hence, it is difficult to believe that Article 234 could complete the system by
compensating the lacunas stemming from the set of legal remedies provided for by the
Treaty in particular in Article 230(4).
This had become particularly problematic to the extent that more and more judgments
have shown that there exist an increasing number of situations in which individuals who
are not addressees may be de facto affected by a EC given act, but cannot challenge it
under Article 230(4) to the extent they do not satisfy its requirements.
Confronted with such situations, the EC courts reacted unpredictably.232 On the hand
they denied locus standi to non-addressees despite their de facto individual interest, by
often insisting that Community rights ‘are fully protected by the national courts which
may, if need be, refer a question to this Court for a preliminary ruling under Article 177
EC’.233 On the other hand, in other cases, the Court recognised locus standi to non-
addressees by stretching the limits of the Plaumann test. This has happened mainly for the
following three reasons: either because of the specificities of the field at hand, because of
the exceptional character of the circumstances surrounding the case or even because the
Courts have been induced by reasons of ‘substantial justice’.234
Thus, for instance, in Fediol, the Court deduced from the numerous substantive and
procedural rights conferred to the complaints by the antidumping regulation that their
complaint would individualise them under Article 230 EC.235 The Court had already
adopted a similar approach in other fields, such as competition236 and state aids.237
As for the best example of a reasoning grounded on arguments of substantial justice
one cannot but refer to Extramet.238 In this judgment, the Court recognised locus standi of
a non-addressee, despite the fact that it had not participated in the procedure leading to
the adoption of the act, by stressing his special position on the affected market.239 A
similar reasoning has also been followed in Codorniu.240 As is well known, the registration
of the trademark ‘Gran Cremant de Codorniou’, obtained back in 1924, has been

232
A Arnull, ‘Private Applicants and the Action for Annulment since Codorniou’ (2000) CML Rev 51 and L
Malferrari, ‘The Functional Representation of the Individual’s Interest Before the EC Courts: the Evolution of the
Remedies System and the Pluralistic Deficit in the EC’ (2005) 12 Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 2, 678.
233
Case C-97/85 R, Union Deutsche Lebensmittelwerke GmbH v Commission [1985] 1331; Case T-398/94,
Kahn Scheepvaart [1996] ECR II-477; Case 321/95 P Stichting Greenpeace Council (Greenpeace International) v
Commission [1998] ECR 1651, paras 27–34.
234
L Malferrari, above note 232, at 679. The same Les Verts judgment may be read under this perspective.
235
Case 191/92, Fediol [1983] ECR 2913.
236
See, eg, Case 26/76, Metro [1977] ECR 1901.
237
See, eg, Case 169/84, Cofaz [1986] ECR 414.
238
Case C-358/89, Extramet [1991] ECR 2501.
239
The Court considered that the contested measure affected seriously its competitive situation by imposing
an anti-dumping duty on a major product used by Extramet in its production process.
240
Case C-309/89 Codorniu [1994] ECR 1853.

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‘Les Verts’ v Parliament

considered to correspond to ‘a situation which, from the point of view of the contested
provision, differentiates it from all other traders’ and justified the admissibility of the
action brought by the Spanish wine-maker.

Rhetoric or Logic of Completeness?

While this case law had already shown most of the limits of the remedies system of the
Community, two successive cases, Union de Pequeños Agricultores (UPA)241 and Jégó-
Quéré,242 by bringing momentum for a possible judicial reform of the system, have
directly put into question the adequateness of the paradigm which had been elaborated in
Les Verts (Article 234 may compensate for the limits of Article 230). In substance, the
questions facing the Court were the following:
First, how a system of legal remedies which has been defined ‘complete’ may admit that
there exist situations in which an individual may neither rely on Article 230 nor Article
234 in order to challenge the validity of an EC act?
Second, would the principle of effective judicial protection be secured when the sole
available course of action for challenging the validity of a given Community act would
consist in infringing EC law in order to trigger an administrative or judicial proceeding
challengeable before national courts?
Third, in view of the ‘completeness’ of the system, shouldn’t standing be granted where
the application of Article 230(4) as interpreted in the case law would entail a denial of
effective judicial protection?
As these questions show, the logic underpinning 30 years of diligent application of Les
Verts was at stake. In particular, the specific circumstances of these cases were directly
questioning the assumption developed in Les Verts according to which the preliminary
ruling procedure, by providing effective judicial protection against general measures,
would ‘complete’ the remedies system.
Would the rhetoric of completeness of the system stemming from Les Verts turn into a
logic of completeness thus leading the Court to widen the conditions of admissibility
under Article 230(4)?
This was the hot question entertaining the EC legal milieu during summer 2004.
Owing to the inconsistency of the prior case law examined above, a clear answer to the
questions raised by these judgments could not be derived from any previous judgment. If,
on the one hand, the Greenpeace judgment did not seem to exclude the possibility that
standing might be granted where the application of the fourth paragraph of Article 230
EC as interpreted in the case law would entail a denial of effective judicial protection,243
Asocarne appeared to strongly deny such a possibility insofar as it stated that ‘In no case

241
Case T-173/98 [1999] ECR II-3357 and Case C-50/00 P Unión de Pequeños Agricultores v Council [2002]
ECR I-6677.
242
Case T-177/01, Jégo-Quéré v Commission [2002] ECR II-2365 and Case C-263/02 P Commission v Jégo-
Quéré [2004] ECR I-3425.
243
Case 321/95 P Greenpeace International [1998] ECR 1651.

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can such a circumstance allow an action for annulment brought by a natural or legal
person which does not satisfy the conditions laid down by the fourth paragraph of Article
230 EC to be declared admissible’.244
In UPA, while AG Jacobs in his powerful Opinion had unmistakably recognised that
‘proceedings before national courts are not … capable of guaranteeing that individuals
seeking to challenge the validity of Community measures are granted fully effective
judicial protection’,245 the Court, after reiterating the existence of ‘a complete system of
legal remedies’, clearly held that the absence of domestic remedies did not allow it to
modify the system of remedies set up by the Treaty.246 According to the ECJ, deciding
otherwise, by requiring the EC Courts, in each individual case, to examine and interpret
national procedural law, would inevitably go beyond their jurisdiction.
Nonetheless, while refusing to expressly recognise the limits of the proceedings before
national courts, the Court tried to revive the assumption made in Les Verts, by adding that
‘in accordance with the principle of sincere co-operation laid down in Article 5 of the
Treaty, national courts are required, so far as possible, to interpret and apply national
procedural rules governing the exercise of rights of action in a way that enables natural
and legal persons to challenge before the courts the legality of any decision or other
national measure relative to the application to them of a Community act of general
application, by pleading the invalidity of such an act’. In the Court’s logic, if—as stated in
Les Verts—the system is ‘complete’ because of Article 234, it is on the Member States to
adapt their national remedies and procedures in accordance with Article 10 EC, rather
than for itself to revise its interpretation of Article 230(4), in order to ensure judicial
protection.
In the following Jego-Quéré case, the CFI, by taking on the AG’s opinion in UPA, went as
far as to sanction the judicial death of Les Verts by holding that the system of legal
remedies ‘can no longer be regarded, in the light of Articles 6 and 13 of the ECHR and of
Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, as guaranteeing persons the right to an
effective remedy enabling them to contest the legality of Community measures of general
application which directly affect their legal situation’.247 In appeal against this judgment,
the ECJ restated its UPA reasoning building upon Les Verts248 by clearly stating that an
‘action for annulment before the Community Court should not on any view be available,
even where it is apparent that the national procedural rules do not allow the individual to
contest the validity of the Community measure at issue unless he has first contravened
it’.249 However, in a last effort to save what it was left of Les Verts, the Court made further
suggestion aimed at ensuring that Article 234 preliminary procedure may still ‘complete’
the system: ‘It is possible for domestic law to permit an individual directly concerned by a
general legislative measure of national law which cannot be directly contested before the
courts to seek from the national authorities under that legislation a measure which may
itself be contested before the national courts, so that the individual may challenge the
legislation indirectly.’250

244
Order in Case C-10/95 P Asocarne v Council [1995] ECR I-4149, para 26.
245
Opinion of AG Jacobs delivered on 21 March 2002 [ECR] 6677, para 40.
246
Case C-50/00 P Unión de Pequeños Agricultores v Council [2002] ECR I-6677, para 43.
247
Case T-177/01: Jégo-Quéré [2002] ECR 2365.
248
Case C-263/02 P Commission v Jégo-Quéré [2004] ECR I-3425, para 30.
249
Ibid, para 34.
250
Ibid, para 35.

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These judgments show how the rhetoric of completeness generated by Les Verts has lost
through time part of its argumentative force by failing to persuade the Court itself to
expand its established interpretation of ‘direct and individual concern’. The attempt to
revive Les Verts by relying on the principle of loyal co-operation to ensure that Article 234
may—once again—offer the solution to all problems seems problematic and short-
sighted. Indeed, this solution, by making the access to justice dependent on the Member
States’ ability to provide for an appropriate legal remedy, does not ensure a uniform degree
of judicial protection throughout Europe.251
It is predicted that the only way to revitalise the heritage of Les Verts is to rely upon its
original logic (since individuals cannot always rely on Article 234, Article 230 must be
judicially updated) in order to justify a generalised opening of the conditions of admissi-
bility of Article 230(4). Although agonising, Les Verts still has enough evocative strength to
make possible the shift from the actual ubi remedium ibi jus to the badly needed ubi jus ibi
remedium within the Community legal order.252

251
For a formulation of this principle see, eg, Case C-228/96 Aprile [1998] ECR I-7141 and Case C-255/00,
Grundig Italiana Spa v Ministero delle Finanze [2002] ECR 8003, para 33. On the possible consequences
stemming from reliance on Article 10 EC, see A Alemanno, ‘British American Tobacco: nuovo capitolo della saga
“Union de pequeňos agricultores – Jégo Quéré”?’ (2003) Il diritto dell’Unione Europea 3.
252
Encouraging signs towards this direction can be found in Case C-432/05 Unibet (London) Ltd and Unibet
(International) Ltd (‘Unibet’), ECR 2271, para 37.

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Columns Design Ltd / Job: Maduro / Division: 08_Les_Verts_v_Parliament /Pg. Position: 9 / Date: 13/1

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