Judgment — ECLI:EU:C:2018:539
Date: 2018-07-05
Language of the case: German
Court formation: Fifth Chamber
Subject matter: Approximation of laws
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Germany

Summary — Judgment of the Court (Fifth Chamber), 5 July 2018 1. Approximation of laws — Textile fibre names and related labelling and marking requirements — Requirements for labelling and marking — Scope — Requirement to give an indication of the fibre composition of all textile products (European Parliament and Council Regulation No 1007/10, recital 10, Arts 4, 7 and 14(1), first subpara. 2. Approximation of laws — Textile fibre names and related labelling and marking requirements — Requirements for labelling and marking — Scope — Pure textile products — No requirement to use the terms ‘100%’, ‘pure’ or ‘all’ — Failure to use those terms does not constitute an unfair or misleading commercial practice (European Parliament and Council Regulation No 1007/2011, Art. 7(1); European Parliament and Council Directive 2005/29) 3. Approximation of laws — Textile fibre names and related labelling and marking requirements — Requirements for labelling and marking — Scope — Pure textile products — Requirement to indicate the name and percentage by weight of all the constituent fibres of the product — None (European Parliament and Council Regulation No 1007/2011, Art. 9(1)) 1. Article 4 and the first subparagraph of Article 14(1) of Regulation (EU) No 1007/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 September 2011 on textile fibre names and related labelling and marking of the fibre composition of textile products and repealing Council Directive 73/44/EEC and Directives 96/73/EC and 2008/121/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council, read in conjunction with recital 10 of that regulation, must be interpreted to the effect that they impose a general labelling or marking obligation in order to give an indication of the fibre composition of all textile products, including those textile products defined in Article 7 of that regulation. (see para. 33, operative part 1) 2. Article 7(1) of Regulation No 1007/2011 must be interpreted to the effect that it does not impose a requirement to use, on the label or marking of a pure textile product, one of the three terms referred to in that provision, that is to say, ‘100%’, ‘pure’ or ‘all’. When those terms are used, they may be used jointly. Moreover, it does not appear from the file submitted to the Court that a practice such as that at issue in the main proceedings constitutes an unfair or misleading commercial practice prohibited by Directive 2005/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 May 2005 concerning unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices in the internal market and amending Council Directive 84/450/EEC, Directives 97/7/EC, 98/27/EC and 2002/65/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council, and Regulation (EC) No 2006/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council (‘the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive’) (OJ 2005 L 149, p. 22). (see paras 42, 43, operative part 2) 3. Article 9(1) of Regulation No 1007/2011 must be interpreted to the effect that the obligation to indicate, on the label or marking, the name and percentage by weight of all the constituent fibres of the textile product in question does not apply to pure textile products. In that regard, it must be pointed out that Article 9 of Regulation No 1007/2011 applies to ‘multi-fibre textile products’, while Article 7 of that regulation concerns ‘pure textile products’. Thus, each of those articles delimits its scope to a specific category of textile products. It follows that pure textile products could not fall within the scope of Article 9 of that regulation, and so the requirements under Article 9(1) could not apply to such products. In addition, since a pure textile product, by its very definition, is composed exclusively of the same fibre, the obligation to state the percentage by weight of ‘all constituent fibres in descending order’ could not apply to such a product. (see paras 45, 46, 50, operative part 3)