Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:1997:99
Date: 1997-02-27
Language of the case: French
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Free movement of goods;Measures having equivalent effect;Quantitative restrictions
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Luxembourg

Summary of the Judgment 
1. Free movement of goods — Quantitative restrictions — Measures having equivalent effect — 
Prohibition — Scope 
(EC Treaty, Art. 30) 
2. Approximation of laws — Measures to promote the completion of the internal market — Sta­
tistics on trading in goods between Member States — ReguUtion No 3330/91 — Obligation 
on undertakings to make a detailed decUration of their intra-Community imports and 
exports — Justified barrier to the free movement of goods — Lawfulness — Breach of the 
principle of proportionality — None 
(Coundl Regulation No 3330/91) 
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SUMMARY — CASE C-l H/96 
1. The prohibition of quantitative restric­
tions and of all measures having equiva­
lent effect applies not only to national 
measures but also to measures adopted by 
the Community institutions. 
2. Regulation N o 3330/91 on the statistics 
relating to the trading of goods between 
Member States, which imposes on under­
takings an obligation to make a detailed 
declaration of their intra-Community 
imports and exports which applies in 
both the Member State of dispatch and 
that of destination of the goods, pursues a 
justified aim, and its restrictive effects 
with respect to the free movement of 
goods are commensurate with that aim. 
The aim of the regulation is to promote 
completion of the internal market by 
establishing a satisfactory level of infor­
mation on the trading of goods between 
Member States by means not involving 
checks at internal frontiers. Barriers to 
the free movement of goods may be 
accepted if they are essential in order to 
obtain reasonably complete and accurate 
information on movements of goods 
within the Community. 
Moreover, having regard to the discretion 
enjoyed by the Community legislature in 
the framework of its powers of harmoni­
zation, the restrictive effects of the obli­
gation to make declarations, which spe­
cifically affects cross-frontier trade and 
compliance with which takes time and 
involves expense, particularly for small 
and medium-sized undertakings, do not 
go beyond what is necessary to achieve 
the objective pursued, since, first, differ­
ent thresholds have been established in 
order to take into account the interests of 
undertakings and not to impose a burden 
on them which is disproportionate to the 
results which users of the statistics are 
entitled to expect, and, second, the Com­
munity institutions have made modern 
data-processing tools available free of 
charge to undertakings. 
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