27In particular, the National Farmers' Union gives as a reason for the application to a Member State of the rule set out in the preceding paragraph the fact that what is important is to determine whether the person who pleads the unlawfulness of a decision was the addressee thereof and whether that person was entitled to challenge it. The cases in which the Court has conceded that a party had the right to challenge the validity of a Community provision in respect of which the time-limit for bringing proceedings had expired were those in which it was not certain that the applicant had standing to challenge the Community measure on the ground that it was a regulation of general application (Case C-241/95 Accrington Beef and Others [1996] ECR I-6699) or a directive addressed to the Member States (Case C-408/95 Eurotunnel and Others [1997] ECR I-6315). In the main proceedings, the French Republic was the addressee of Decisions 98/256 and 1999/514 and it was entitled to challenge their validity. It can therefore no longer plead their unlawfulness.
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