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Case 15/79 Groenveld [1979] ECR 3409

By Oxbridge Law TeamUpdated 04/01/2024 07:15

Judgement for the case Case 15/79 Groenveld

Table Of Contents

  • Dutch legislation prohibited all manufacturers of meat products from having in stock or processing horsemeat (in order to safeguard exports of meat products to countries which prohibit the marketing and sale of horse flesh).

  • ECJ said the ban was not contrary to Article 29 provided that it did not discriminate between horse meat products intended for domestic use and those intended for export. 

ECJ

That provision concerns national measures which have as their specific object or effect the restriction of patterns of exports and thereby the establishment of a difference in treatment between the domestic trade of a member-State and its export trade in such a way as to provide a particular advantage for national production or for the domestic market of the State in question at the expense of the production or of the trade of other member-States.

This is not so in the case of a prohibition like that in question which is applied objectively to the production of goods of a certain kind without drawing a distinction depending on whether such goods are intended for the national market or for export.

  • I.e. test = distortion of trade + advantage for domestic market.

  • This appears to be a ‘discrimination-based’ test rather than a ‘restriction-based’ one.

  • NB contrast to approach in Alpine Investments (below)

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1,161 total pages
1027 purchased

European Law notes fully updated for recent exams at Oxford and Cambrid...