Using examples from recent case law, critically evaluate what is meant Essay

Using examples from recent case law, critically evaluate what is meant by 'market access' and the merits and problems of this approach in the area of free movement of goods - Essay Example The main intention of the Articles 28-31 is to stop member states from involving in the quantitative restrictions. It is to be observed that Article 28 can be extended even when there is no discrimination. In the celebrated Cassis de Dijon case, ECJ held that Article 28 can nibble, where the rule prohibits the free flow of products within the EU subject to certain exceptions when the analogues’ rule extends to both imports and domestic products. Hence, discrimination is therefore, an adequate, but not essential, condition for the invocation of Article 28. Thus, the Article 28 can be said to be a mechanism for policing the periphery between the illegitimate and legitimate national regulation, and the nature of this border may well be challengeable. (Craig & Burca 2008:669). Article 34 of the TFEU pertains to Intra –EU imports and bars quantitative limitations and all initiatives having analogues’ impact between member nations. Immediately after the entry into forc e of the Lisbon Treaty, the EC Treaty has been altered and rechristened as the â€Å"Treaty on Functioning of the European Union.† (TFEU). The provisions of free movement of products got new numbering as Article 34-36 from that of 28-30. (Wolf & Stanley 2010:106). Article 23(9) stresses the free movement of products arising in the Member states and goods from third nations, which are in free movement in the Member States. By making EU as a region without internal borders, there has been removal of all barriers for free movement of product through calling off excise and customs’ duties, creating a common external tariff for the whole of the community, the quantitative limits on trade and equivalent steps. (Moens & Trone 2010:57). Market access can be regarded from the angle of both consumer and manufacturer. For the manufacture angle, free movement of their products helps to enter into various national markets with their sole aim of confronting local manufacturers in th e country of import and the derivative aim of permitting economies of scale to be enjoyed. Market access may be a way to an outcome, the outcome being to exploit maximum revenue /turnover for the individual manufacturer and to improve the best possible distribution of resources for the EU as a whole. If Germans are given an opportunity to drink British beer, then some German may prefer it to the British product, than the local product and this is known as market access mechanism. For instance, an airline operating from any member states is having unrestricted and open access to any air routes within the EU as there had been removal of virtually all price and capacity controls. (Doganis 2006:13). Until the Keck and Mithouard case, the Court perused an analysis of the rule of free movement of goods that made liable any national law to an evaluation of proportionality analogues to cost/benefit evaluation. Due to this approach, any public regulation of the market would be under close wa tch, and this kindled deregulation of the market at the national level. (Shaw 2000:332). In Keck and Mithouard case, they marketed the products like Sati Rouge coffee and Picon beer in France at a price which is well below the wholesale-price or at a loss. There had been a bar in selling products at a loss under French law, prosecution against them was initiated. Keck and Mithouard defended that French law was incompatible with the Article 28