Markku Sahlstedt and Others v.Commission of the European Communities

On 23 April 2009 the ECJ dismissed the appeal brought against an order of the CFI by a number of Finnish landowners. The CFI had dismissed the action for annulment of Commission Decision 2005/101/EC adopting, pursuant to Habitats Directive, the list of sites of Community importance for the Boreal biogeographical region. The CFI had found that the appellants were not directly concerned by the contested decision for the purposes of the fourth paragraph of Article 230 EC and, in consequence, dismissed their action. The ECJ confirmed the inadmissibility of the action by adding that natural or legal persons, who own land within the sites of Community interest, are not individually concerned by the contested decision, since the contested decision was adopted exclusively on the basis of objective biological criteria and not in the light of the specific situation of the landowners