Dassonville decision
The Dassonville decision of the European Court of Justice (ECJ case 8/74, public prosecutor's office / Benoit and Gustave Dassonville, ruling of July 11, 1974, ECR 1974, 837) belongs together with the Keck decision (ECJ case C- 267 and 268/91, ruling of November 24, 1993, Coll. 1993, I-6097) and the Cassis-de-Dijon decision (ECJ Case 120/78, ruling of February 20, 1979, 1979, 649) on the key decisions regarding the free movement of goods in the internal market .
The EU law protects the help of Art. 3, para. 1, Art. 28 et seq. TFEU (formerly referred to as Community law in Art. 3 Para. 1 lit. a, Art. 23ff. EGV ) the free movement of goods , which is one of the four fundamental freedoms . In some cases, however, the member states try to continue to protect their markets or not to open them completely. Instead of quantitative restrictions (quotas), these are often measures that do not represent quotas themselves, but have the same effect and thus also protect the domestic market. Articles 34 and 35 TFEU (formerly Articles 28 and 29 ECT) deal with this, which prescribe a “prohibition of quantitative restrictions and measures having equivalent effect” for the import and export of goods. In the Dassonville decision, the ECJ defined in more detail which measures with equivalent effect fall under Articles 34 and 35 TFEU:
"Every trade regulation of the Member States that is capable of directly or indirectly, actually or potentially hindering intra-Community trade is to be regarded as a measure having the same effect as a quantitative restriction."
With this formula, the ECJ is only based on objective characteristics, since it would be difficult to prove a protectionist intention, as would the actual effect of the measures. The definition goes much further than that of the Commission five years before the decision (70/50 / EEC of December 22, 1969 (OJ 1970 L 013 / 0029-0031, Sartorius II No. 175)), since it is now the only option interaction between government action and trade flows is sufficient - and this is almost always the case.
However, the judgment was restricted by the Cassis formula , which provides for the state in question as compensation for the concept of intervention extended by the Dassonville decision. With the Keck formula , which was developed later , the extended term of intervention was also limited again by making it clear that non-discriminatory sales modalities are not to be assessed as measures with the same effect in the sense of the free movement of goods, whereas product-related regulations are.
