class march 23
For tomorrow’s class please read to page 19.
I asked you to think about whether the Austrian rule in the Trucks case was an indistinctly applicable rule or not. This matters because under Cassis, indistinctly applicable rules can be justified on the basis of public interest considerations that are not listed in Art 30. Rules which are not indistinctly applicable, but apply only to imports can only be justified by reference to the considerations listed in Art. 30.
The Court’s decision to examine whether the rule satisfied proportionality involved an assessment that environmental protection was a legitimate interest for the Member States. But the Court refers to “imperative requirements in the public interest endorsed by the case-law of the Court of Justice” rather than to Art. 30 as the basis for the Member States’ power in this area (para 84). The Court does not say that the rule in the case is indistinctly applicable.