Happy Crumble is a company located in Paranoida – a fictitious Member State of the European Union (EU) – and its main activity consists in manufacturing different types of apple desserts. Happy Crumble has been active since 2005 and it usually imports apples from other Member States to ensure that it has a sufficient supply of apples throughout the year. Happy Crumble especially imports apples from Hygiland, another – fictitious – EU Member State well-known for the high quality of its apple production.
After an outbreak of fire blight in Paranoida starting in January 2019, the government of this Member State decided to introduce a new charge on all imports of apples from other EU Member States. The Paranoidan government explained that this charge would ensure that systematic phytosanitary inspections would be carried out on all apples imported from other Member States. Indeed, fire blight is a serious disease affecting apple trees – among others – and the Paranoidan government suspects that this disease comes from imported apples.
While this measure particularly affects the importers of apples in Paranoida – such as Happy Crumble – the government considers that it actually makes a favour to importers insofar as it spares them from having to pay for their own inspections to prove that the imported products are healthy. Moreover, the fee only amounts to 0.1% of the corresponding price for 100 kilograms of imported apples, which the government deems to be ‘symbolic’. Together with other importers of apples, Happy Crumble has decided to challenge this measure which they regard as being incompatible with EU law.
Towards the end of 2021, Paranoida decided to adopt even more drastic measures to fight against the fire blight disease. To do so, this Member State has introduced a licensing system for the import of all types of apples from all the other Member States. The government also mentioned that it would not issue licenses for the importation of this product in the near future. Following this announcement, Happy Crumble has become even more concerned about the survival of its business.
In its view, this measure was clearly not justified especially in light of the fact that fire blight outbreaks had recently occurred in very few Member States and that in particular, no such outbreaks had occurred in Hygiland from where Happy Crumble imports most of its products. Moreover, Happy Crumble has observed that following the outbreak of fire blight in Paranoida, there had been a steep rise of imports of apples from Hygiland into Paranoida with the result that national producers were increasingly worried and especially so, as the National Apple Festival taking place each year on December 1st was approaching.
For all these reasons, Happy Crumble and other companies importing apples in Paranoida have decided to challenge the national measures before the competent national court of Paranoida on the grounds that they are incompatible with the relevant EU law provisions on the free movement of goods.
Advise Happy Crumble and the other companies importing apples into Paranoida on how they should develop their arguments in light of the relevant EU law.
