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States. No similar provision exists in the ECSC Treaty referring to general
characteristics of legal acts (that are equivalent to the EC legal acts).

The principle of direct effect in accordance with the European Court of Jus-
tice reads as follows: “when indicating that the legal act has direct effect,
it means that individuals are conferred rights but not obligations, meaning
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that individuals can invoke rights and not the state authorities”. Generally,
for a legal act to have direct effect, it has to be legally valid i.e. to be part
of the internal legal system. Second, it should be formulated in the manner
that the provision explicitly confers certain rights to individuals. For the
second requirement to be fulÞlled it is necessary that the provision is:

- clear and unambiguous;
- unconditional; and
- its effect must not be subordinate to additional activities nei-
ther of the EU nor of the national authorities.

Regulations are directly applicable, except in cases where they direct-
ly authorise a Member State to adopt implementing regulations (par-
ticularly in the area of Þnancial and administrative law). It means that
regulations as well as provisions of the Treaties may confer rights to
legal and natural persons and impose obligations.

Decisions are directly applicable to their addressees. Direct effect of
decisions depends on their addressees. They may produce vertical di-
rect effect if the addressees are only EU Member States. Decision
addressed to a natural or a legal person can produce both vertical and
horizontal direct effects.

Directives are to be transposed (by implementing legal acts), however
an individual:
- may invoke to the rights in directives, in cases where the state
failed to transpose them in time (vertical direct effect),
- he/she may not invoke to the rights in directives in relation to
other individuals (horizontal direct effect).

4 T.C.Hartley “The Foundations of European Community Law” Oxford University
Press, 1988, p.88

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