‘Competent authorities [namely any public authority established either at national, regional or local level and designated by a Member State as responsible for enforcing the Union laws that protect consumers’ interests (8)] shall have at least the following enforcement powers:
…
(f) the power to bring about the cessation or the prohibition of infringements covered by this Regulation;
…’
19. In the light of those factors, the question is whether the provisions laid down in that article could be relevant for the purposes of assessing the nature and scope of the powers thus conferred on national bodies, pursuant to Article 16 of Regulation No 261/2004.
20. For the reasons I shall set out below, I am of the opinion – in line with the views expressed by the parties at the hearing – that such provisions are not relevant for the analysis.
21. Under Article 2(1) of Regulation 2017/2394, that regulation applies ‘to intra-Union infringements, widespread infringements and widespread infringements with a Union dimension, even if those infringements have ceased before enforcement starts or is completed’. It follows from Article 3 of that regulation that all of those infringements are defined as referring to acts or omissions contrary to EU laws that protect consumers’ interests which have done, do or are likely to do harm to the ‘collective interests’ of consumers.
22. In its interpretative guidelines, (9 ) the Commission thus pointed out that the national authorities responsible for enforcing Regulation No 261/2004 ‘have to fulfil their obligations under [Regulation (EC) No 2006/2004 (10)] where the collective interests of consumers are at stake in a cross-border context’. (11)
23. Although the national body responsible for enforcing Regulation No 261/2004 protects, as its primary task, the collective interests of air passengers, the referring court’s question arises in a very different context concerning the protection of those passengers’ individual interests. The right to compensation established by the EU legislature in Article 7 of that regulation forms part of the performance of the contract of carriage concluded between the passenger and the air carrier. The power of enforcement which that body wields following an individual complaint is therefore applied in the interests not of a group of individuals, but of a clearly defined individual. In its case-law, the Court thus refers to the collective interests of consumers as covering a situation ‘more extensive than the
relations between the parties to the dispute’. (12) The concept of collective interest (1 3)
can be
distinguished from that of individual interest. It follows that there is a clear contradiction between the
context of the case in the main proceedings and the situations to which Regulation 2017/2394 applies, characterised in particular by its objective of protecting the ‘collective interests of consumers as a group’. (14)