## Facts

- Rewe-Zentral AG sought to import and market “Cassis de Dijon,” a blackcurrant liqueur lawfully produced and sold in France with 15–20% alcohol by volume.
- German rules required products sold as liqueurs to have a minimum alcohol content of 25% by volume.
- The German spirits authority refused to allow marketing of Cassis de Dijon as a liqueur because it did not meet the minimum-strength requirement.
- Rewe challenged the refusal as incompatible with the Treaty prohibition on quantitative restrictions and measures having equivalent effect on imports.
- A German finance court referred questions to the European Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling on which Treaty provisions governed the measure and whether it could be justified.

## Issues

1. Whether a generally applicable minimum-alcohol rule for liqueurs falls within the Treaty provision on state commercial monopolies rather than the free-movement rules on goods.
2. Whether fixing a minimum alcohol content for liqueurs constitutes a measure having equivalent effect to a quantitative restriction on imports when it blocks marketing of products lawfully sold in another Member State.
3. Whether such a measure can be justified under express Treaty derogations (public policy/health) or under non-enumerated public-interest grounds recognized for non-discriminatory rules.

## Decision

- The Court held the state-monopoly provision did not apply because the minimum-alcohol rule was a general marketing rule, not a rule governing the exercise of monopoly-exclusive rights.
- The Court held the minimum-alcohol requirement was a measure having equivalent effect to a quantitative restriction on imports where it prevented importation/marketing of alcoholic beverages lawfully produced and marketed in another Member State.
- The Court recognized that, absent harmonized rules, certain indistinctly applicable national measures may be tolerated if necessary to satisfy “mandatory requirements” (including fiscal supervision, public health, fairness of commercial transactions, and consumer protection).
- The Court concluded the German minimum-alcohol rule was not shown to be necessary for any acceptable justification and therefore infringed the free-movement rule on goods.

## Legal Principles

- Treaty rules on state commercial monopolies address monopoly-exclusive rights and do not govern generally applicable product marketing requirements.
- Indistinctly applicable product rules can still be unlawful trade barriers if they hinder imports in practice by requiring imported goods to meet additional national composition standards.
- In the absence of harmonization, obstacles resulting from disparities in national marketing rules may be accepted only when necessary to satisfy recognized mandatory requirements (e.g., fiscal supervision, public health, consumer protection, and fairness in trade).
- A Member State must use less restrictive means where available (such as consumer information/labeling) rather than excluding lawfully marketed products from other Member States.
- Goods lawfully produced and marketed in one Member State should, as a rule, be admitted to the market of another Member State unless a proportionate justification is established.

## Conclusion

The Court treated Germany’s minimum-alcohol requirement for liqueurs as an unlawful import barrier under the free movement of goods rules, clarified that general product regulations are assessed under those rules rather than the state-monopoly provision, and introduced the “mandatory requirements” framework while rejecting the asserted justifications for the measure.


Rewe-Zentral Aktiengesellschaft v. Bundesmonopolverwaltung für Branntwein (Cassis de Dijon), Case 120/78, 1979 E.C.R. 649 (ECJ 1979)