Tag: TFEU

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Booze bikes banned from Amsterdam. Time for a pousse-cafe: the EU law analysis that never was.

At the end of October the Rechtbank Amsterdam held that ‘booze bikes’ can be kept from parts of Amsterdam. The municipality had resorted to the ban both to address congestion (the bikes are slow and chunky; the roads in the part of Amsterdam concerned, narrow) and rowdiness (the bikes are often used for stag parties and let’s just say that the ‘bike’ part of the trip is not the one that attracts its users). In my experience (from a resident’s point of view) these bikes are a bit like Brexit: attractive for five minutes to some; a right nuisance for the remainder of the journey.

In 2009 I wrote a short piece reflecting on use restrictions from an EU point of view. In it I refer ia to C-142/05 Mickelsson and to C-110/05 Commission v Italy (motorcyle trailers) – my analysis and that of Peter Oliver may be applied here mutatis mutandis. The degree to which lawfully marketed products may be restricted in their use has so far not entertained the Court of Justice in great numbers. Yet the use of such restrictions is bound to increase, with local authorities in particular imposing restrictions for environmental, public health and other ‘sustainable development’ purposes. Witness e.g. Venice banning wheeled suitcases, historic city centres banning diesel cars etc.

In the booze bike case the Court at Amsterdam (at 2.9) simply said that applicants should have provided detail of their argument as to why the ban might contravene EU law. Expect a second round on similar cases at some point.

Geert.

 

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Emerald Supplies et al v BA: on the territorial scope of EU competition law.

This posting is really addressed to those with more of a full-time interest in competition law than yours truly. Particularly in the extraterritorial effect of same. In  [2017] EWHC 2420 (Ch) Emerald Supplies et al v British Airways defendants contend that as a matter of law there can be no claim for damages arising from the cartel at issue insofar as it affected freight charges between the EU and third countries on flights before 1 May 2004. That was the date on which air transport between the EU and third countries was brought within the regime implementing the EU competition rules set out in Regulation 1/2003.

Rose J after careful analysis sides with the defendants and rejects reference to the CJEU, citing acte clair (enough analysis of the CJEU on the same and related issues- I believe she is right). Happy reading.

Geert.

 

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Ach no! CJEU distinguishes rather than extinguishes its Preussen Elektra case-law in Germany v EC. State aid for renewable energy.

Update May 2019. The General Court’s judgment upon appeal was annulled by the CJEU in Case C-405/16 P at the end of March. In essence, as TaylorWessing point out, although the German State controlled the implementation of the EEG surcharge, it did not control the sums generated, so that the existence of State aid is ruled out.

 

The rather long judgment in T-47/15 Germany v Commission is neatly summarised by the CJEU here. I have reported before on both the State Aid and the free movement implications of the Court’s seminal findings in Preussen Elektra. In current case, the Court essentially upholds the EC’s finding of the more recent German regime amounting to illegal State aid and incompatibility with the Internal Market – in contrast with its earlier findings in Preussen Elektra.

Disappointingly, Preussen Elektra was distinguished rather than its merits called into question. Rather like Advocate-General Bot I stubbornly insist that Preussen Elektra is bad case-law and I continue to call upon the Court to scrap its findings in same.

Geert.

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‘We did not like it. Not one little bit!’ Bot AG reads Dr Seuss in Essent 2.0.

Perhaps because it so reflected our children’s character [all ‘Duracell‘ kids] there is one part of Dr Seuss’ Cat in the Hat which has always stuck with me:

so all we could do was to

sit!

   sit!

      sit!

         sit!

and we did not like it.

not one little bit.

I was reminded of the line, reading Bot AG’s Opinion in Case C-492/14, ‘Essent 2.0’ (not yet available in English at the time of writing). In order to promote the generation of renewable energy, Flanders law makes transmission of electricity generated from renewable sources, free of charge. However this courtesy is limited to electricity generated in installations directly connected to the grid. Essent imports (a considerable part of) its green electricity from The Netherlands. It does not therefore enjoy free transmission.

Bot’s disapproval of trade restrictions like these is well established and has often been reported on this blog. The CJEU disagrees with its AG on many of the issues. I am in general of the same view as the AG. Mr Bot continues to find the Court’s case-law unconvincing and makes no attempt to hide it. He repeatedly mentions that he is duty-bound to apply Essent /Vindkraft without believing they are good law. It is with obvious regret that he Opines that given the Court’s stand in Essent /Vindkraft, he has no option but to propose that the Court find the Flemish regime acceptable.

The AG does however leave open a future window for change: in particular, if and when the secondary law regime on renewable energy specifically, and energy as a whole, is amended, one may be able to distinguish Essent /Vindkraft.

Bot also reminds us of the unclear position of environmental exceptions under Article 36 TFEU and the Rule of Reason. He calls upon the Court formally to acknowledge that the Cassis de Dijon distinction between the Rule of Reason and Article 36 (the former does not allow ‘distinctly applicable’ national measures (read’ discrimination) while the latter does) no longer exists.

I do not like judgment in Preussen Elektra. Or in Essent. Not one little bit. It discourages the creation of a true European energy market. Perhaps the Court will surprise us all in Essent 2.0 and will correct some of the damage it has done with its standing case-law on the matter.

Geert.

 

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Cheers to that! The CJEU on excise duties, alcohol, packaging and regulatory autonomy in Valev Visnapuu.

Postscript 10 December 2015 For a similar exercise, see Sharpston AG in C-472/14 Canadian Oil.

Less is sometimes more so I shall not attempt to summarise all issues in Case C-198/14 Valev Visnapuu. The case makes for sometimes condensed reading however it perfectly illustrates the way to go about dealing with obstacles to trade put in place for environmental, public health or, as in this case, both reasons.

Mr Visnapuu essentially forum shops Estonia’s lower prices on alcohol by offering Finnish clients home delivery of alcoholic beverages purchased there. No declaration of import is made to Finish customs and excise, thereby circumventing (accusation of course is that this is illegal) a variety of excise duties imposed for public health and environmental reasons, as well as a number of requirements relating to retail licenses and container requirements (essentially a deposit-return system) for beverages.

Confronted with a demand to settle various tax debts, as well as with a suspended prison sentence, Mr Visnapuu turns to EU law as his defence in a criminal proceeding. The CJEU then had to settle a variety of classic trade and environment /public health questions: whether the packaging and packaging waste Directive is exhaustive on the issue of deposit-return system (answer: no and hence the system additionally needs to be assessed vis-a-vis EU primary law: Article 34 ff TFEU or Article 110 TFEU); whether in the context of that Directive excise duties on packaging may be imposed (yes) and packaging integrated into a functioning return system exempt (yes; in the absence of indications that imported systems are less likely to enjoy the exemption); whether the relevant excise duties fall under Article 34 ff TFEU or Article 110 TFEU (answer: it is part of an internal system of taxation hence needs to be judged vis-a-vis Article 110 TFEU); and finally whether the retail licence requirement needs to be judged viz Article 34 or Article 37 TFEU (answer: mixed, given the various requirements at stake). Final judgment on proportionality is down to the Finnish courts.

Readers in need of a tipple would be advised to postpone until after reading the judgment. Again though the case shows that if one keeps a clear head, classic structures of applying EU law go a long way in untangling even complex matters of law and fact.

Geert.

 

 

 

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Your call, sir: The ECJ leaves it to the national court in Essent to deliver ultimate sentence on support scheme for renewables.

Current post is best read in conjunction with my post on Vindkraft . The essence of the questions put to the Court was whether the Treaty’s rules on the free movement of goods, preclude a national support scheme, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, which provides for the issuance, by the competent regional regulatory authority, of tradable certificates in respect of green electricity produced on the territory of the region concerned and which places electricity suppliers under an obligation, subject to an administrative fine, to surrender annually to that authority a certain number of those certificates corresponding to a proportion of the total volume of the electricity that they have supplied in that region, without those suppliers being allowed to fulfil that obligation by using guarantees of origin originating from other Member States of the European Union or non-member States which are parties to the EEA Agreement.

The ECJ, like in Vindkraft, first of all does not rule on the qualification of certificates of origin as being ‘goods’ or not: the legislation at any rate hinders the free movement of the electricity underlying the certificates.

It subsequently basically confirms the main findings of Vindkraft, including the absence of express reversal of the non-applicability of the Rule of Reason  to discriminatory measures (please refer again to my Vindkraft posting should the previous sentence make you scratch your heads). Yes, the Flemish regime restricts trade. Yes, this can be justified for environmental reasons. However, the Court does emphasise the proportionality test. In Vindkraft, the ECJ itself held the scheme to be compatible with the Treaty by virtue essentially of its highly transparent and market-driven character. In Essent, however, this final call is left to the national judge. For the Flemish scheme to meet the proportionality test, it is important that mechanisms be established which ensure the creation of a genuine market for certificates in which supply can match demand, reaching some kind of balance, so that it is actually possible for the relevant suppliers to obtain certificates under fair terms (at 112).

Furthermore, the fine in the absence of quota fulfilment must not impose excessive penalties imposed on the traders concerned (at 114). It is for the national court to verify this.

I had flagged the much less market-oriented character of the Flemish scheme as a distinguishing factor viz Vindkraft. It is now up to the Brussels court of first instance (and others beyond it, one imagines) to deliver the ultimate verdict.

Geert.

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Thank you for not displaying. Objections to tobacco display ban go up in smoke.

I have previously referred to the display ban case which Philip Morris took to the EFTA Court. I have only just recently stumbled across the eventual holding of the court which had referred the case to Luxembourg. (The Norwegian court held a year after EFTA’s judgment). Not GAVClaw style to report close to 2 years after date of issue: blame the inadequate (read lack of) system by which EFTA and indeed EU Member States report back on their eventual findings in preliminary review.

The District Court had been instructed by the EFTA Court to review whether the display ban actually affects the sale of domestic products and sale of goods from other EEA States equally. If there is de facto equal treatment, the law surfs on Keck & Mithouard’s exception for ‘selling arrangements’: no infringement of the core prohibition on quantitative restrictions to trade in the first place. (See Alberto Alemanno’s analysis of the EFTA ruling for background).

The national court suggested that the EFTA Court had not been entirely clear on how that test had to be constructed: not at any rate, it held, as a market hindrance test: i.e. that new products’ chances of entering the Norwegian tobacco market should be decisive for the question of whether a restriction exists.  It referred inter alia (at p.35 of the copy referred to above) to the fact that the Norwegian Government in its submission to the EFTA Court had suggested that even though such hindrance for new products at the time did not actually exist, it could be expected indeed hoped that this would be the case. The District Court held that in the light of this acknowledgement by the Government, had the EFTA Court found this problematic, it would and should have said so explicitly. (This in some ways might be seen as a risk for the EFTA Court’s tradition, in line with the ECJ’s approach, to practice judicial economy).

The District Court in the end decided to continue the case on the basis of whether national products have a more favourable position due to local habits and customs linked to tobacco use (at p.35): the burden of proof whether the ban actually and not just potentially affects the marketing of imported tobacco products differently than domestic tobacco products lies with PMI, the Court held. That, it said, was not established with clarity: the de facto discriminatory effect of the display ban was found to be too uncertain to be considered a trade barrier.

The Court then somewhat inconsistently (do Norwegian courts practice wide obiter?) did review suitability and proportionality (not needed if Keck & Mithouard applied). Here, without naming the precautionary principle, the Court applies an important consequence often associated with it: the reversal of burden of proof. The Court essentially wanted PMI to show clear evidence for the display ban not being suitable for restricting the consumption of tobacco in Norway, at any rate in the long term (p.48). The Court essentially relies on previous case-law on tobacco advertising and equates suitability of the display ban with relevant studies and case-law on advertising restrictions. This was bound to (although the court took some length to establish it) lead to a finding of suitability.

Finally, as for proportionality proper, the court (with cross-reference i.a. on the effect of these bans elsewhere) did not find less trade restrictive alternatives (within the context of access to information or branding at point of sale).

This judgment just has to be staple fodder for risk classes and the interaction between risk analysis and trade law.

Geert.

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Renewable energy and trade: Now it’s all clear, Essent it? The ECJ in Vindkraft.

Post-script 28 August 2014: The ECJ will hold in Essent C-204/12 on 11 September

Updated 11 September: see here for review of judgment in Essent.

As reported, the ECJ last week held in Vindkraft. It did not follow the lead of Bot AG who had suggested inter alia that Directive 2009/28 itself  (which the ECJ has now found is not exhaustive on the issue of territorial restrictions of support schemes, hence requiring assessment under primary EU law) is contrary to EU primary law in allowing Member States to discriminate against foreign produced renewable electricity by limiting access to their national support scheme to electricity generated on their territory; and that such illegality is not backed by the environmental exceptions to the Treaty. I had suggested at the time of the AG issuing his Opinion in the related case of Essent, that there is in my view merit in the argument that the relevant Union laws require Member States to roll-out their own, national renewable energy capabilities, and that systems such as the Flemish one (in Essent) or Swedish one (Vindkraft) may be required to support industry to work towards that goal.

The ECJ agrees. Member States can continue to restrict access to their support schemes (in the strict sense of not rolling out financing to renewable energy of foreign origin): this constitutes an infringement to the free movement of goods but one which can be justified. In Preussen Elektra the ECJ had allowed the German scheme despite it being discriminatory. This might have been an implicit reversal of the case-law that infringements of the free movement of goods may only be based on the court-invented ‘mandatory requirements’ (of which environmental protection is one; as opposed to those societal interests which are included in the explicit list of exceptions of Article 36 TFEU) where they do not discriminate. (Not, such as is the case here, where they undoubtedly discriminate). That it might have been such reversal  had led the AG to suggest, finding support in the integration principle, that the Court in Essent should make that reversal explicit. In the end the Court decided Vindkraft before Essent (which is still pending) and simply refers (at 80) to its Preussen Elektra case law: no explicit reversal.

That is unfortunate for we are now left to ponder whether Preussen Elektra /Vindkraft (probably also Essent?) needs distinguishing (making reneable energy /Kyoto /UNFCCC commitments stand out from other environmental requirements)?

The Court instead focusses on proportionality. In that assessment, as pointed out by Catherine Banet, the ECJ emphasises the market-based elements of the Swedish scheme (the certificates can be sold separately from the underlying electricity and the market is operated in a transparent and liquid fashion): a less market-oriented approach may not have survived ECJ scrutiny.

Deciding Vindkraft together with Essent would have been helpful. Instead, Essent still contains another angle: namely certificates of origin (as opposed to only green certificates. Green certificates are used by a Member State to show its meeting its obligations to produce a minimum amount of electricity from renewable sources. Certificates of origin allow an electricity distributor to prove that x amount of its electricity distributed, originates from renewable energy). The Flemish support scheme for renewable energy at issue in Essent, grants renewable energy certificates to producers of such energy only if they are located in the Flemish Region, and obliges electricity distributors to surrender a minimum amount of such certificates without being able to offer such certificates obtained in other EU Member States. Taking the lead of the Court in Vindkraft, the Flemish scheme looks more vulnerable to me.

In conclusion: no, it Essent yet clear.

Geert.

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Ragn-Sells: Court leaves open violation of primary EU law by waste shipments Regulation – Free movement of services question left unanswered

The ECJ’s December judgment in Ragn-Sells Case C-292/12 came recently to my attention in revisiting the waste ownership and freedom to provide services question for a brief.  The case concerns the combined application of the waste framework Directive, the waste shipments Regulation, the public procurement Directives, the free movement of goods and of services, and, for good measure, competition law, exclusive rights and abuse of dominant position.

The dispute in the main proceedings concerns the lawfulness of contract documents stipulating that mixed municipal waste had to be transported to the landfill facility which was the subject-matter of an earlier public procurement procedure — located 5 km from the contracting town, whilst industrial and building waste was to be taken to a landfill site, located 25 km away.

Not all of these issues were addressed by the ECJ, though: for the issue relating to competition law /creation of exclusive rights which might lead to abuse of dominant position, not enough information had been furnished by the national court.For the issue of free movement of services, there was nothing in the file submitted to the Court indicating that undertakings established in other Member States have been interested in treating waste produced in the territory of the municipality at issue.

The latter especially is a pity (on the competition issue there is plenty of case-law): for the extent of free movement of services in the waste sector (and environmental services generally), is not at all clearly laid out in case-law. Hint for those wanting to use free movement of services arguments in their struggle against restrictive national measures: ensure paper trail of, or indeed if need be, trigger, foreign interest in the waste streams provided.

The Court did entertain the free movement of goods questions. As regards, first of all, waste destined for disposal operations and mixed municipal waste, it follows, the Court held, from Article 11(1)(a) of Regulation No 1013/2006, read in the light of recital 20 in the preamble thereto, and Article 16 of Directive 2008/98, that the Member States may adopt measures of general application restricting shipments of that waste between Member States, in the form of general or partial prohibitions of shipments, by way of implementation of the principles of proximity, priority for recovery and self-sufficiency under Directive 2008/98. By analogy the court then applied Case C‑209/98 Sydhavnens to find eventually that ‘Accordingly, in the case of waste destined for disposal operations and mixed municipal waste collected from private households and, as applicable, other producers, a Member State may confer on local authorities, on the geographical scale it deems appropriate, powers to manage the waste produced on their territory in order to ensure compliance with its obligations under Article 16 of Directive 2008/98. Those authorities may, as part of the powers conferred upon them, provide that those types of waste will be treated in the nearest appropriate facility (at 63).

I continue to argue that especially with respect to mixed municipal waste, this room for manoeuvre provided for by the Regulation combined with the Directive, itself is incompatible with primary EU law. However I am not sure how much longer I can argue that as a result of judicial economy, the ECJ has never really properly addressed this question.

As regards, secondly, shipments of waste destined for recovery operations, other than mixed municipal waste, the Court by contrast held that the combined effect of Regulation and Waste Framework Directive does not provide for the possibility for a national authority to adopt a measure of general application having the effect of prohibiting, totally or partially, shipments of such waste to other Member States for treatment.

In summary, some remaining doubt re free movement of goods (primacy EU law) in my mind. Undoubtedly a lot of remaining doubt re free movement of services. Waste law and free movement: they continue to fascinate!

Geert.

 

 

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Essent, Vindkraft: Bot AG turns on the heat in suggesting secondary EU law infringes primary law

After his Opinion in Essent, Bot AG has turned on the heat on the ECJ in a case with many similarities, Case C-573/12 Vindkraft. Catherine Banet, a former student of mine, has excellent analysis linking the two cases here. Vindkraft concerns the successor to Directive 2001/77 (at stake in Essent), i.e. Directive 2009/28. The Advocate General essentially argues that the new Directive itself is contrary to EU primary law in allowing Member States to discriminate against foreign produced renewable electricity by limiting access to their national support scheme to electricity generated on their territory; and that such illegality is not backed by the environmental exceptions to the Treaty.

The ECJ has not yet held in Essent. As I have noted, it is far from guaranteed that it will follow all of the AG’s lead. (The Opinion at the time of posting was not yet available in English).

Geert.

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