Nonetheless, the Court did not annul the protection decision, precisely because the relevant application submitted by the Italian administrative authorities had finally turned out to be valid, on the one hand, and the examination conducted by the Commission on the existence of the substantive requirements for the granting of protection itself153 was considered exhaustive, on the other. On the contrary, the absence of even one of these elements should have likely led the Court to annul the contested decision. The national stage may be missing, however, if the application for protection is received from a third country, in which case it must be submitted to the Commission directly by the person concerned established there or through his or her national authorities 154. XI. (CONTINUED): THE UNION PHASE Apart from the exception just mentioned, the European phase cannot therefore be opened without a special request by a Member State . 155 The jurisprudence of the Court of Justice in the recent Consortium des Charcutiers Corse156 confirms that – at the EU stage – the Commission has full power when assessing an application for registration (in this case concerning PGI products), thus being able to reject it for lack of the relevant conditions, without being bound by the positive judgement instead given in this regard by the national administrative authorities and courts. 153 The Court therefore also examined the merits of the assessments that had led the Commission to grant recognition in favour of the PGI: this allowed the judges to exclude the existence of a violation of the right to a fair trial to the detriment of the plaintiffs. 154 Reg. (EU) No 2024/1143, cited above, Art. 58(2). 155 Court of Justice, Judgment of 29 January 2020, GAEC Jeanningros, C-785/18, EU:C:2020:46), paragraph 36. 156 Court of Justice, Judgment of 4 October 2024, Consortium des Charcutiers Corse, C-579/23 P, ECLI:EU:C:2024:832. The Commission’s controversial decision was brought by Implementing Reg. (EU) 2021/1879, dated 26 October 2021, adopted at a time (19 December 2019) when the French Council of State had definitively rejected three appeals lodged against the decrees by which (on 20 April 2018) the French Ministry of Agriculture had approved the specifications of the products for which protection as PGI products was sought. It is thus reiterated as expressed by the EU General Court in its previous judgment on the Piadina Romagnola PGI case, cited above, paragraph 89: “l’interprétation du système de répartition des compétences en matière d’enregistrement des IGP, défendue par la Commission, selon laquelle il appartient aux seules autorités nationales d’évaluer les conséquences d’une annulation par une juridiction nationale d’un cahier des charges et à la Commission de suivre ces autorités en s’appuyant sur la confiance qu’elle accorde à l’État membre quant au fait que la demande qui lui est soumise est celle sur laquelle il souhaite qu’elle se prononce, aboutit à un résultat contraire à l’esprit de ce système dans lequel la Commission est liée par les « appréciations » ou par les « souhaits » des autorités nationales, alors qu’elle joue un rôle autonome dans la procédure d’enregistrement d’une IGP ayant pour effet de consacrer un droit à l’échelle de l’Union par l’adoption d’un acte de l’Union” (no official English text available). 354 ERMENEGILDO MARIO APPIANO
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