Brussels, 02/03/2001 (Agence Europe) - As briefly pointed out earlier, the European Commission decided, on 1 March, to continue the proceedings initiated against Greece, Spain, Ireland and the Netherlands, concerning trade barriers incompatible with Article 28 of the EC Treaty on the free movement of goods.
The Commission has referred Greece to the Court of Justice concerning its legislation, requiring all non-alcoholic drinks sold in Greece to be indelibly marked in Green and in English, with a recommended price in drachmas. In the case of imported products, this measure makes it compulsory either for the retailer to modify the labelling or the packaging (a sticker is not enough), or for the manufacturer to produce specific batches intended for the Greek market and bearing a compulsory price indication. The Commission considers that, in both cases, the extra charges entailed for production or the distribution of the products constitute measures that have an impact equivalent to quantitative import restrictions. Although it recognises the legitimacy of wanting to protect consumers, it stresses that the price labelling requirement is out of proportion to the aim and that alternative measures could be just as effective.
The Commission also decided to bring Spain before the Court as the authorities there are penalising companies that market cleaning agents containing bleach, legally manufactured and/or marketed as cleaning products in other Member States. The reason given is that these products do not contain the concentration of active chlorine required for bleaches in Spain. Stressing that the Spanish authorities are ignoring a mutual recognition clause in their national regulations on bleaches, the Commission specifies that they cannot reserve the term "cleaning agent with bleach" for products which conform to Spanish regulations only, as different products are known with this name in other Member States. It also notes that the protection of consumers can be guaranteed through labelling, without resorting to unjustified obstacles to the free movement of goods.
The Commission sent Ireland and the Netherlands reasoned opinions on Wednesday. In Ireland, the authorities take an average of two and a half years to decide on applications for parallel imports of pharmaceutical products, systematically inviting the authorities of the country exporting the product imported in parallel to verify the information provided by the applicant and to provide information on therapeutic equivalence. The Commission considers that a simplified procedure would speed up decision-making. It therefore calls on Ireland to "put a stop to these lengthy procedures because they constitute an illegal trade barrier".
In the Netherlands, the Commission calls for simplification and acceleration of authorisation procedures for generic phytopharmaceutical products and parallel imports of phytopharmaceutical products (mainly pesticides or fungicides for agricultural use) which are legally manufactured and/or marketed in other Member States. The Dutch procedures, in three stages, take between one and two years and are relatively costly. The Commission recalls that the case law of the Court fixes at 45 days the reasonable time for granting authorisation for marketing in the case of parallel imports of these products, and stresses that the times and costs of proceedings concerned are out of proportion to the aim of risk prevention.