CJEC, 6th chamber, June 11, 1987, No 406-85

THE COURT (sixth chamber)

1 By a judgment of 30 September 1985, which was received at the Court on 9 December 1985, as rectified by a judgment of 6 March 1986, which was received at the Court on 19 March 1986, the Tribunal de grande instance, Charleville-Mézières, referred to the Court for a preliminary ruling under article 177 of the EEC Treaty a question on the interpretation of articles 30 and 36 of the Treaty.

2 The question arose in the course of criminal proceedings concerning infringements of the Code de la route (road traffic laws). Mr Gilliard is charged with having used his second-hand Lada motor vehicle, bought in Belgium, on the road in France with a false registration plate and without being in possession of the required authorizations or administrative documents ("carte grise" (registration certificate)*) and Mr Gofette is charged with having procured the false registration plate.

3 In the proceedings before the national Court Mr Gilliard claimed in his defence that the conditions required for the registration of his vehicle in France were incompatible with article 30 of the EEC Treaty.

4 It appears from the documents in the case that Mr Gilliard applied to the service des mines (vehicle registration office) for approval in order to have his vehicle registered and in reply was sent a list of formal requirements and was asked inter alia for a "declaration issued either by the French manufacturer or by the representative accredited in France and authorized to sign certificates of conformity of the relevant type stating that the vehicle in question is in conformity with an approved type". He applied to the company Lada France, which informed him that it could issue the requested certificate only after checking the car, but the cost of such a service would be FF 1 874.58 excluding the cost of the component parts to be replaced in order to carry out the inspection and of the parts needed to enable the car to be admitted into France.

5 The Tribunal de grande instance, Charleville-Mézières, considering that an interpretation of the Treaty was necessary in order to enable it to give judgment, stayed the proceedings and referred the following question to the Court for a preliminary ruling :

"must Article 30 of the EEC Treaty, read in conjunction with any other provisions thereof, be interpreted as prohibiting a member state from introducing by legislation, regulation or administrative practice, for vehicles imported from another member state where they have already been approved or authorized for use, a system imposing a further approval procedure - known as "individual approval" - whereby the vehicle must be submitted for laboratory testing unless a declaration is produced either from the manufacturer or from an authorized representative in the importing country who is empowered to sign certificates of conformity for the relevant vehicle type, stating that the imported vehicle conforms to an approved type?"

6 Reference is made to the report for the hearing for a fuller account of the facts in the main proceedings, the French rules and practice and the written observations submitted to the Court, which are mentioned or discussed hereinafter only in so far as is necessary for the reasoning of the Court.

7 In the first place it should be stated that although any control imposed as a precondition for the registration of a vehicle imported from another member state may impede imports and is therefore in principle incompatible with Article 30 of the Treaty, such measures may be justified under Article 36 in so far as they are necessary for road safety reasons.

8 As regards in particular the type of control referred to in the question asked by the national Court, it is clear that council directive 70-156-EEC of 6 February 1970 on the approximation of the laws of the member states relating to the type-approval of motor vehicles and their trailers (Official Journal, English special edition 1970 (i), p. 96) did not provide for a sufficient degree of harmonization to permit national approval procedures to be entirely replaced by a community approval procedure for each type of vehicle.

9 Consequently, the existence of a control procedure to check the conformity of imported vehicles with an approved type is not in itself incompatible with the Treaty.

10 However, for such a national control procedure to be justified in accordance with the requirements of Article 36 of the Treaty, it must not be possible for the objective pursued to be realized as effectively by measures which do not restrict intra-community trade so much (Judgments of 20 May 1976 in Case 104-75 de Peijper (1976) ECR 613, and of 12 June 1986 in Case 50-85 Schloh v Autocontrole Technique (1986) ECR 1855). Consequently, that procedure must not entail unreasonable cost or delay. Where an individual, such as the manufacturer or his authorized representative, is responsible for carrying out the necessary checks on behalf of the public authorities, it is up to the latter to ensure that all the conditions referred to above are fully satisfied.

11 Moreover, as the Court has already stated in connection with a similar question, the authorities of the member states are not entitled to require checks to be carried out if they have already been carried out in another member state and the results are available to those authorities or may at their request be placed at their disposal (judgment of 17 December 1981 in Case 272-80 Biologische Producten (1981) ECR 3277). The importing member state must therefore make provision for the alternative of substituting the production by the importer of documents drawn up in the exporting member state for the checks for the approval of the vehicle in so far as those documents contain the necessary information.

12 The reply to be given to the question asked by the national Court should therefore be that articles 30 and 36 of the EEC Treaty must be interpreted as meaning that, as community law now stands, an approval procedure laid down in a member state for vehicles imported from another member state and already approved or authorized for use in that state is compatible with the Treaty only if :

(a) the checking procedure does not entail unreasonable cost or delay and the public authorities ensure that these conditions are fully met where the manufacturer or his authorized representative is called on to carry out the necessary checks;

(b) the importer may, as an alternative to the checking procedure, produce documents issued in the exporting member state in so far as those documents provide the necessary information based on checks already carried out.

Costs

13 The costs incurred by the French government and the Commission of the European Communities, which have submitted observations to the Court, are not recoverable. As these proceedings are, in so far as the parties to the main proceedings are concerned, in the nature of a step in the proceedings pending before the national Court, the decision as to costs is a matter for that Court.

On those grounds,

THE COURT (sixth chamber),

In answer to the question referred to it by the Tribunal de grande instance, Charleville-Mézières, by judgment of 30 September 1985 and rectifying judgment of 6 March 1986, hereby rules :

Articles 30 and 36 of the EEC Treaty are to be interpreted as meaning that, as Community law now stands, an approval procedure laid down in a Member State for vehicles imported from another Member State and already approved or authorized for use in that State is compatible with the Treaty only if :

(a) the checking procedure does not entail unreasonable cost or delay and the public authorities ensure that these conditions are fully met where the manufacturer or his authorized representative is called on to carry out the necessary checks;

(b) the importer may, as an alternative to the checking procedure, produce documents issued in the exporting Member State in so far as those documents provide the necessary information based on checks already carried out.