Official Journal of the European Union

C series

—

C/2025/1536

17.3.2025

(Case C-69/25 P)

(C/2025/1536)

Language of the case: French

Parties

Appellants: Laurent Merlin and Others (in view of the number of appellants, they are listed in a footnote (1)) (represented by: F.-C. Laprévote, F. de Bure and T. Otmani, avocats)

Other party: European Commission

Forms of order sought

The appellants claim that the Court should:

—Pursuant to Article 263 TFEU, Article 56 of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union and Article 167 of its Rules of Procedure, set aside point 2 of the operative part of the judgment delivered by the General Court of the European Union on 13 November 2024, Merlin and Others v Commission (T-141/23, EU:T:2024:818), which dismissed the action in so far as it seeks a declaration that the Commission failed to act in respect of the contested funding under the European Fisheries Fund (‘the EFF’) and the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (‘the EMFF’); and

—Grant the forms of order submitted by the appellants as applicants at first instance and declare that the Commission unlawfully failed to adopt, following the examination of their complaints concerning alleged unlawful State aid granted under the EFF and the EMFF, a decision under Regulation 2015/1589; (2) and

—Order the Commission to pay the costs in full.

Grounds of appeal and main arguments

The appellants rely on three grounds in support of their appeal:

First, the General Court erred in law and distorted the facts by finding that the Commission had established clearly and definitively its position on the applicants’ call to act, on the basis of a test consisting in, erroneously, determining the existence of such a clearly and definitively established position in the light solely of the exchanges with the Commission preceding the letter containing the call to act, even though the letter in reply to the call to act does not express an opinion on the applicants’ requests.

Second, the General Court distorted the facts of the case by finding that, in its letter in reply to the call to act, the Commission had referred to alleged earlier definitions of position in letters preceding the call to act, and that those references, alone, according to the General Court, made it possible to determine the position that the Commission would have taken.

Third, the General Court erred in law and failed to state reasons by omitting to rule on the applicability of the [procedural] regulation, giving rise to an infringement of the parties’ fundamental right to an effective judicial review protected by Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

—

(1) Stéphane Pinto, Gaëtan Delsart, Gaëtan Baillet, Jean-Yves Noël, Christophe Lhomel, Jérémy Lhomel, Alexandre Fournier, Stéphane Fournier, Christian Dubois, Franck Nowe, Jean-Pierre Deparis, Frédéric Drogerys, Jean-Marie Baheu, Jonathan Delsart, José Pinto, Mathieu Pinto, Olivier Leprêtre, Josse Martin, Lionel Descharles, Loïc Merlin, Philippe Calone, Sébastien Leprêtre, Philippe Mahieu, Andries Visser, Charles Lines, Paul Lines and Low Impact Fishers of Europe (LIFE), a not-for-profit association (ASBL) governed by Belgian law.

(2) Council Regulation (EU) 2015/1589 of 13 July 2015 laying down detailed rules for the application of Article 108 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (OJ 2015 L 248, p. 9).

ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2025/1536/oj

ISSN 1977-091X (electronic edition)

—