Keywords

Summary



Keywords

++++

1. Preliminary rulings ° Reference to the Court ° Need for prior inter partes proceedings ° Assessment by the national court

(EEC Treaty, Art. 177)

2. Agriculture ° Approximation of laws concerning public health policy ° Intra-Community trade in fresh meat ° Directive 64/433 ° Systematic inspections of goods having a public health certificate and levying of charges by way of consideration ° Not permissible ° Levying of charges in consideration of inspections permitted by the directive ° Justification ° None

(Council Directive 64/433, as amended by Directive 83/90)

3. Free movement of goods ° Quantitative restrictions ° Measures having equivalent effect ° Importation of fresh meat into a municipality of a Member State ° Transport and delivery to the place of final destination ° Obligation imposed on traders to have recourse to an undertaking holding an exclusive concession ° Not permissible ° Measure limited to a part of the national territory and applicable without distinction to domestic and imported products ° No effect ° Article 30 of the Treaty ° Direct effect

(EEC Treaty, Art. 30)

Summary

1. Although Article 177 of the Treaty does not make reference to the Court subject to the proceedings during which the national court frames a question for a preliminary ruling being inter partes, it may, in some circumstances, prove to be in the interests of the proper administration of justice that a question should be referred for a preliminary ruling only after both sides have been heard, but it is for the national court alone to assess whether that is necessary.

2. Directive 64/433 on health problems affecting intra-Community trade in fresh meat, as amended by Directive 83/90, established a complete, detailed and harmonized system of health inspections of fresh meat, based on public health guarantees being equivalent at Community level, which replaces all other inspection systems existing within the country of destination, whatever the place where such inspections may be carried out.

The directive must therefore be interpreted as precluding a domestic inspection system which makes imported goods already accompanied by a health certificate issued by the authorities of the exporting Member State in accordance with Community rules subject to compulsory, systematic and permanent health checks, even where such checks do not take place at the frontier, but in the municipality of transit or destination of the goods, and requires the economic operator in question to pay a charge therefor.

The levying of such a pecuniary charge is also not justified in respect of health checks and inspections allowed under the directive as consideration for services rendered, since the activity undertaken by the national authorities in relation to those inspections is carried out in the public interest and not in the interest of the importer. It must, therefore, in every case be viewed as an obstacle to the free movement of Community goods, which is prohibited by the Treaty.

3. The fact that rules of a municipality in a Member State oblige traders importing fresh meat into the municipality to go through the municipal slaughterhouse to entrust the transport and delivery of their goods to their final destination to a local undertaking holding an exclusive concession for that work and that those rules allow those traders to carry out the transport and delivery of their goods themselves upon payment of a certain sum to the undertaking holding that concession constitutes a barrier to importations between Member States which is prohibited by Article 30 of the Treaty.

That conclusion is not affected by the fact that the measure in question is limited to the territory of a municipality within a Member State. When a national measure has limited territorial scope because it applies only to a part of the national territory, it cannot escape being categorized as discriminatory or protective for the purposes of the rules on free movement of goods on the ground that it affects both the sale of products from other parts of the national territory and the sale of products imported from other Member States. Nor is it material that the measure in question is generally applicable without distinction to national and imported products, since its effect is to make importation of goods from other Member States more burdensome and more difficult.

Article 30 of the Treaty has direct effect and creates for individuals rights which the national courts must protect.