Judgment_paragraph 89 · Falke KGaA v European Commission (T-306/21)

89It must be observed that the present plea, relating to the safeguarding of the applicant’s procedural rights by reason of the failure of the Commission to initiate a formal examination procedure despite the alleged existence of serious doubts, is in fact subsidiary in nature, in the event that the General Court did not examine the merits of the assessment of the aid as such. According to settled case-law, the aim of such a plea is to enable interested parties to be held to have standing, in that capacity, to bring an action under Article 263 TFEU, which otherwise would be unavailable to them (see, to that effect, judgments of 24 May 2011, Commission v Kronoply and Kronotex, C‑83/09 P, EU:C:2011:341, paragraph 48, and of 27 October 2011, Austria v Scheucher-Fleisch and Others, C‑47/10 P, EU:C:2011:698, paragraph 44). In so far as this plea, which relates to the correctness of the assessment of the aid as such, has been examined, it is deprived of its stated purpose.