Cassis de Dijon Case
| Cassis de Dijon | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Court | European Court of Justice |
| Decided | 20 February 1979 |
| Citation(s) | (1979) Case 120/78 |
| Keywords | |
| Quantitative restriction on trade, Measures of equivalent effect | |
Rewe-Zentral AG v Bundesmonopolverwaltung für Branntwein (1979) Case 120/78, popularly known as the Cassis de Dijon case, is an EU law decision of the European Court of Justice. The Court held that a regulation applying to both imported and to domestic goods (an "indistinctly applicable measure") that produces an effect equivalent to a quantitative import restriction is an unlawful restriction on the free movement of goods. The case is a seminal judicial interpretation of article 34 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
The case concerned the sale of "Cassis de Dijon" (a type of crème de cassis) in Germany by an importer and retailer (Rewe). Crème de cassis is a blackcurrant liqueur produced in France containing 15% to 20% alcohol by volume. The German government had a law stipulating that products sold as fruit liqueur had to contain at least 25% alcohol by volume. Therefore, the Bundesmonopolverwaltung für Branntwein (a section of the German Federal Ministry of Finance) told Rewe that the Cassis de Dijon might be imported: on the other hand, it advised the importer that its marketing wasn't allowed in Germany. The importer argued that this represented an effect equivalent to a quantitative restriction on trade in breach of article 30 of the Treaty of Rome.
The ECJ held that the German legislation represented a measure having an effect equivalent to a quantitative restriction on imports and was thus in breach of article 34 of the Treaty:
Obstacles to movement within the Community resulting from disparities between the national laws relating to the marketing of the products in question must be accepted in so far as those provisions may be recognized as being necessary in order to satisfy mandatory requirements relating in particular to the effectiveness of fiscal supervision, the protection of public health, the fairness of commercial transactions and the defence of the consumer.
9. The government of the Federal Republic of Germany, intervening in the proceedings, put forward various arguments which, in its view, justify the application of provisions relating to the minimum alcohol content of alcoholic beverages, adducing considerations relating on the one hand to the protection of public health and on the other to the protection of the consumer against unfair commercial practices.
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