30The issue of the admissibility of the questions referred for a preliminary ruling arises because Atzeni and Others already brought an action for annulment of the contested decision on 25 January 2002 before the Court of First Instance of the European Communities. By order of 29 May 2002 in Case T-21/02 Atzeni and Others v Commission, not published in the ECR, the Court of First Instance dismissed the action as inadmissible because it had been brought after the timelimit, without, however, ruling on a second ground of inadmissibility raised by the Commission, relating to the applicants' lack of standing to bring proceedings before the Court of First Instance. If they had had standing to bring proceedings but had merely failed to bring their action within the prescribed time-limits, the present references for a preliminary ruling, relating to the validity of the contested decision, would be inadmissible before this Court.
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