Facts
- Belgian rules required importers of goods bearing a protected designation of origin (PDO), including Scotch whisky, to present an official certificate issued by the exporting state attesting to the product’s authenticity.
- Benoît and Gustave Dassonville lawfully purchased Scotch whisky in France, where no such certificate was needed, and imported it into Belgium without obtaining the document.
- In practice, only traders with direct contractual links to United Kingdom producers could secure the certificate, effectively excluding parallel importers from compliance.
- Belgian authorities prosecuted the brothers for failing to file the certificate when marketing the whisky in Belgium.
- The defendants contended that the certificate requirement obstructed the free movement of goods guaranteed by Article 34 TFEU (then Article 30 EEC).
Issues
- Whether Belgium’s certificate-of-origin requirement constituted a “measure having equivalent effect to a quantitative restriction” prohibited by Article 34 TFEU.
- Whether an indistinctly applicable national rule that, in practice, places heavier burdens on importers than on domestic traders still falls within the scope of Article 34.
Decision
- The Court of Justice ruled that the certificate obligation was a measure having equivalent effect to a quantitative restriction and therefore infringed Article 34.
- It formulated the “Dassonville test”: every trading rule of a Member State that is capable of hindering, directly or indirectly, actually or potentially, intra-Union trade in goods is caught by Article 34.
- The Court confirmed that neither discriminatory intent nor proof of an actual reduction in trade is required; the mere possibility of hindrance suffices.
- National measures may only survive if they fall under Article 36 TFEU or recognised mandatory requirements and are proportionate; administrative convenience cannot justify a restriction.
- As Belgium advanced no valid Article 36 justification and the rule was disproportionate, the certificate requirement had to be disapplied.
Legal Principles
- The decisive factor is a rule’s capacity to restrict intra-EU trade, not its form, purpose, or facial neutrality.
- Both distinctly and indistinctly applicable measures can breach Article 34 when they impose disproportionate burdens on imports.
- Potential or indirect restraints fall within Article 34; concrete evidence of trade loss is unnecessary.
- Justifications are limited to Article 36 grounds (public morality, policy, security, health and life of humans, animals, or plants, national treasures, industrial or commercial property) or Court-recognised mandatory requirements, and must satisfy proportionality.
- Member States cannot impose additional conditions on goods lawfully marketed in another Member State unless those conditions are objectively justified and the least restrictive means available.
Conclusion
The Court invalidated Belgium’s certificate-of-origin rule and, through the Dassonville test, laid down a broad definition of measures equivalent to quantitative restrictions: any national rule capable of obstructing intra-EU trade in goods is unlawful unless it is proportionate and comes within Article 36 TFEU or a recognised mandatory requirement.