Van Gend en Loos v Nederlandse Administratie der Belastingen
Van Gend en Loos v Nederlandse Administratie der Belastingen (1963) Case 26/62 was a landmark case of the European Court of Justice which established that provisions of the Treaty Establishing the European Economic Community were capable of creating legal rights which could be enforced by both natural and legal persons before the courts of the Community's member states. This is now called the principle of direct effect.[1] The case is acknowledged as being one of the most important, and possibly the most famous development of European Union law.[1]
van Gend en Loos
NV Algemene Transport- en Expeditie-Onderneming van Gend en Loos v Nederlandse Administratie der Belastingen
26/62
Full court
Netherlands
Tariefcommissie, decision of 14 August 1962 (8847/48 T)
The case arose from the reclassification of a chemical, by the Benelux countries, into a customs category entailing higher customs charges. Preliminary questions were asked by the Dutch Tariefcommissie in a dispute between Van Gend en Loos and the Dutch Tax Authority (Nederlandse Administratie der Belastingen). The European Court of Justice held that this breached a provision of the treaty requiring member states to progressively reduce customs duties between themselves, and continued to rule that the breach was actionable by individuals before national courts and not just by the member states of the Community themselves.
Significance[edit]
The case is authority for the proposition that sufficiently clear and unconditional provisions of the Treaty of Rome are directly effective (as distinct from directly applicable) in their application against the state.
The case illustrates the creative jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice. The doctrine of direct effect is not mentioned in the Treaty. The court justified the doctrine of direct effect on the basis of the autonomous nature of the legal order that was created by the Treaty of Rome.[5][6][7] The autonomy of the EEC (now EU) legal order means that EU law itself decides on the manner in which EU law creates effects in the national legal orders. The Court held that the autonomy of EU law was necessary to ensure the compliance of member states with their obligations under the Treaty of Rome. It seems likely that the court took the decision under the influence of French judge Robert Lecourt, who had been appointed to the court in May 1962. Lecourt's speeches and writings repeatedly connect the direct effect doctrine with the suppression of inter-state retaliation and unilateral safeguard mechanisms within the European Economic Community.[8]
The case illustrates a procedure of enforcement of EC law at the national level—direct effect does not require the commission to bring an action against the state. This is significant because it provides a more effective distributed enforcement mechanism.