Luxembourg, 20/10/2000 (Agence Europe) - In a ruling in the Dutch affair, Snellers Autos, the European Court of Justice points out that a regulation on the registration of vehicles imported from other Member States must not be too strict and thus injure parallel importers outside the official networks of automobile manufacturers. The State Council of the Netherlands should, at the beginning of the case, decide itself whether the Dutch regulation is disproportionate or not compared to the road safety aims and environmental protection objectives of Dutch authorities.
A Dutch 1994 regulation grants first registration as a new vehicle to any cars imported: a) if their mileage is below 2,500 km on the clock; b) if they have not been registered for over two days in another Member State. Snellers Autos is a Dutch parallel importer that had bought, in August 1996, in Germany, a BMW that it had presented to the Dutch MOT inspection eight days later. The road circulation office (Dienst Wegverkeer) had registered the BMW in January 1997, with 6 August 1996 as the date of entry, which made the car lose one year in value quotation.
Snellers Auto had filed a complaint with the Almelo local court which had ruled in its favour. The Office had then appealed to a section of the State Council which, before giving its decision, had referred the file to the European Court of Justice, asking it whether the Dutch regulation was counter to European law.
The Dutch, Belgian, French, Austrian and British governments took part in this case. Paris had defended the Dutch government. The geographical situation of the Netherlands is such that it is possible, within a radius of 2,500 km and within ten days, to buy and import a vehicle from all the Member States, the French representative had explained.
In its ruling, the Court states the fact that a vehicle is registered during more than two days in another Member States does not give any information on its age or how much it has been used. It would therefore be up to the Netherlands State Council to verify whether this condition of two days is effectively necessary to ensure road safety and/or protect the environment and whether the restriction arising from this is not out of proportion with these objectives, mainly in that it is not possible to find other less restrictive measures.