Colim NV v Bigg's Continent Noord NV.
Date: 1999-06-03
22 In that regard, it should be remembered that the aim of Directive 83/189 is to protect, by preventive monitoring, the free movement of goods, which is one of the foundations of the Community (Case C-13/96 Bic Benelux v Belgian State [1997] ECR I-1753, paragraph 19).  That monitoring is designed to eliminate or reduce barriers to the free movement of goods that might result from technical regulations which the Member States propose to adopt.  A national measure which reproduces or replaces, without adding new or additional specifications, existing technical regulations which, if adopted after the entry into force of Directive 83/189, have been duly notified to the Commission, cannot be regarded as a `draft' technical regulation within the meaning of Article 1(6) of Directive 83/189 or, consequently, as subject to the obligation to notify.
25 However, in the main proceedings the applicable version of Directive 83/189 is the one in force when notification should have been given if the provisions of Article 13 of the WHPC constituted technical regulations.
26 So, since the WHPC was adopted on 14 July 1991, the requirements laid down in Article 13 of the Law must be examined in the light of Directive 83/189 as amended by Directive 88/182.
29 Save where it can be transmitted effectively by the use of pictograms or signs other than words, information which traders are obliged to communicate to the purchasers or, as the case may be, to the end-user is of no practical use unless it is given in a language which can be understood by the persons for whom it is intended.  So the obligation to express that information in a specified language does not in itself constitute a `technical regulation' within the meaning of Directive 83/189, but an ancillary rule necessary in order for the information to be effectively communicated.
36 However, while language requirements of the kind laid down by the national legislation at issue in the main proceedings are not technical regulations within the meaning of Directive 83/189, they do constitute a barrier to intra-Community trade in so far as products coming from other Member States have to be given different labelling involving additional packaging costs (see, to that effect, Case C-51/93 Meyhui v Schott Zwiesel Glaswerke [1994] ECR I-3879, paragraph 13).
37 Furthermore, the need to alter the packaging or the labelling of imported products prevents such requirements from being treated as selling arrangements within the meaning of the judgment in Joined Cases C-267/91 and C-268/91 Keck and Mithouard [1993] ECR I-6097, paragraph 16.
38 Article 30 of the EC Treaty (now, after amendment, Article 28 EC) prohibits obstacles to the free movement of goods resulting from rules that lay down requirements to be met by such goods (such as requirements as to designation, form, size, weight, composition, presentation, labelling or packaging), even if those rules apply without distinction to all national and imported products, unless their application can be justified by a public-interest objective taking precedence over the free movement of goods (see, in particular, Meyhui, paragraph 10).
41 It follows, first, that a measure requiring the use of a language which consumers can readily understand must not exclude the possible use of other means of informing them, such as designs, symbols or pictograms.  It is for the national court to determine in each case whether what appears on the labelling is such as to give consumers full information (see, to that effect, Case C-85/94 Piageme and Others v Peeters [1995] ECR I-2955, paragraph 28).