Keywords

Summary



Keywords

1 Agriculture - Approximation of laws - Minimum standards for the protection of calves - Directive 91/629 - Validity - Compliance with the European Convention on the Protection of Animals Kept for Farming Purposes and the Recommendation concerning Cattle - No effect

(Council Directive 91/629; Council Decision 78/923)

2 Free movement of goods - Quantitative restrictions on exports - Measures restricting the export of live calves with a view to preventing them from being reared in systems which are prohibited in the exporting Member State but comply with the relevant directive - Justification - Grounds of public morality and public policy - Protection of the health and life of animals - No such justification

(EC Treaty, Art. 36; Council Directive 91/629; Council Decision 78/923)

Summary

3 The validity of Directive 91/629 laying down minimum standards for the protection of calves cannot be affected by the fact that it is inconsistent with the 1976 European Convention on the Protection of Animals Kept for Farming Purposes, approved on behalf of the Community by Decision 78/923, and with the 1988 Recommendation concerning Cattle, drawn up to apply the principles of the Convention.

As far as the Convention is concerned, the concern expressed therein to make the Contracting Parties aware of the need to maintain rearing conditions which respect the well-being of animals in vital areas is not followed up by the definition of standards non-observance of which could affect the validity of the directive. It is clear from the very wording of its provisions that they are indicative only and are limited to providing for the elaboration of recommendations to the Contracting Parties with a view to application of the principles which they set out.

As far as the Recommendation is concerned, it is not directly applicable in the national law of the Contracting Parties and, even if its provisions may be more precise than those of the Convention, a document of that kind nevertheless does not contain legally binding obligations for the Contracting Parties and therefore for the Community.

4 A Member State which observes the 1988 Recommendation concerning Cattle, drawn up to apply the principles of the 1976 European Convention on the Protection of Animals Kept for Farming Purposes which was approved on behalf of the Community by Decision 78/923, cannot rely on Article 36 of the Treaty and, in particular, on the grounds of public morality, public policy and/or the protection of the health or life of animals laid down therein, in order to justify restrictions on the export of live calves with a view to preventing those calves from being reared in the veal crate systems used in other Member States which have implemented Directive 91/629 laying down minimum standards for the protection of calves, but which do not observe that Recommendation.

While Article 36 allows the maintenance of restrictions on the free movement of goods justified on the abovementioned grounds, which constitute fundamental requirements recognised by Community law, recourse to that article is nevertheless no longer possible where Community directives provide for harmonisation of the measures necessary to achieve the specific objective which would be furthered by such recourse.

That is precisely the case as regards the protection of the health of calves, which constitutes the specific objective of the harmonisation undertaken by the said directive, because that directive exhaustively lays down minimum common standards for the protection of calves confined for the purposes of rearing and fattening, and it can be no objection to argue that, under Article 11(2) of the directive, the Member States may maintain or apply within their territories stricter provisions for the protection of calves than those laid down in the directive.

As for the protection of public policy or public morality which, by contrast, are not the subject of the directive, reliance on Article 36 is ruled out in so far as, first, public policy and public morality are not invoked as a separate justification but are an aspect of the justification relating to the protection of animal health and, secondly, a Member State cannot rely on the views or the behaviour of a section of national public opinion in order unilaterally to challenge a harmonising measure adopted by the Community institutions.