Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:1999:250
Date: 1999-05-18
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: Austria

Summary of the Judgment 
Free movement of goods — Quantitative restrictions — Measures having equivalent 
effect — National legislation under which sales rounds of foodstuffs in a given 
administrative district are reserved to operators established in that district or in an 
adjacent municipality — Not permissible — Whether justifiable — No justification 
(EC Treaty, Art. 30 (now, after amendment, Art. 28 EC» 
I - 151 
SUMMARY — CASE C-254/98 
Article 30 of the Treaty (now, after amend­
ment, Article 28 EC) precludes national 
legislation which provides that bakers, 
butchers and grocers may not make sales 
on rounds in a given administrative district 
unless they also carry on their trade at a 
permanent establishment situated in that 
administrative district or in an adjacent 
municipality, where they offer for sale the 
same goods as they do on rounds. 
Such legislation, which relates to the selling 
arrangements for certain goods — in that it 
lays down the geographical areas in which 
each of the operators concerned may sell 
his goods by that method — does not affect 
in the same manner the marketing of 
domestic products and that of products 
from other Member States even though it 
applies to all operators trading in the 
national territory. Consequently, it is cap­
able of hindering intra-Community trade in 
so far as it impedes access to the market of 
the Member State of importation for pro­
ducts from other Member States more than 
it impedes access for domestic products. 
That conclusion is not affected by the fact 
that, in each part of the national territory, 
the legislation affects both the sale of 
products from other parts of the national 
territory and the sale of products imported 
from other Member States. For a national 
measure to be categorised as discriminatory 
or protective for the purposes of the rules 
on the free movement of goods, it is not 
necessary for it to have the effect of 
favouring national products as a whole or 
of placing only imported products at as 
disadvantage and not national products. 
Such legislation cannot be justified by 
objectives relating to the protection of the 
supplying of goods at short distance to the 
advantage of local businesses, since aims of 
a purely economic nature cannot justify a 
barrier to the fundamental principle of the 
free movement of goods; nor can it be 
justified in terms of the need to protect 
public health, since that objective can be 
attained by measures that have effects less 
restrictive of intra-Community trade. 
(see paras 24-25, 27, 29, 31-33, 36-37 and 
operative part) 
I - 152