Court of Justice: judgement "Cassis de Dijon"

At the beginning of the 70s, the French company L'Héritier Guyot - maker of the famous crème "Cassis de Dijon" - wanted to export its product to the German market. German authorities were opposed on the grounds that the proportion of alcohol in "Cassis de Dijon" was much higher than the levels that German legislation authorised for that kind of beverage. Not happy with this response, the Dijon-based company L'Héritier Guyot decided to appeal to the Court of Justice of the EC. It was in 1979 that the Court ruled, in the Cassis de Dijon Judgement (CJ Case 120/78, 20/02/79), that a measure could be deemed to a restrictive effect even without discrimination between imported and domestic products. In particular, imposing the technical rules of the importing State on products from other Member States is tantamount to introducing an equivalent measure since the imported products are penalised by being forced to undergo costly adjustments. The fact that there is no Community harmonisation of the rules cannot be used to justify this attitude, which effectively hinders freedom of movement, and the Court therefore laid down the principle that any product legally manufactured and marketed in a Member State in accordance with the fair and traditional rules and manufacturing processes of that country must be allowed onto the market of any other Member State. This is in fact the principle of mutual recognition, that opens the doors for the free movement of goods within the EU, and therefore the reason why the "Cassis de Dijon" ruling is such an important piece of European legislation. This infoclip illustrates this judgement.

European Commission | November 11, 2002

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