State Aid - Measures to promote the use of insulation material from renewable raw materials - Decision declaring aid compatible with the common market - Preliminary examination - Action for annulment - Professional association - Meaning of ‘party concerned’ in Article 88(2) EC - Pleas in law on validity of decision - Inadmissibility.

Judgment of the Court of First Instance (Third Chamber) of 20 September 2007 – Fachvereinigung Mineralfaserindustrie v Commission (Case T-254/05) State Aid – Measures to promote the use of insulation material from renewable raw materials – Decision declaring aid compatible with the common market – Preliminary examination – Action for annulment – Professional association – Meaning of ‘party concerned’ in Article 88(2) EC – Pleas in law on validity of decision – Inadmissibility 1.                     Actions for annulment – Natural or legal persons – Measures of direct and individual concern to them – Commission decision finding aid compatible with the common market without opening the formal investigation procedure (Arts 88(2) and (3) EC and 230, fourth para., EC) (see paras 30-36, 47) 2.                     Actions for annulment – Pleas in law – Interpretation by the court – Limits (Art. 230 EC) (see para. 48) Re: ACTION for annulment of Commission Decision C(2005) 379 of 11 February 2005 relating to State Aid N 260b/2004 (Germany – Prolongation of the scheme to promote the use of insulation material from renewable raw materials). Operative part The Court: 1. Dismisses the application as inadmissible; 2. Orders Fachvereinigung Mineralfaserindustrie eV Deutsche Gruppe der Eurima – European Insulation Manufacturers Association to bear its own costs and to pay the costs of the Commission; 3. Orders the Federal Republic of Germany to bear its own costs.