Opinion of Mr Advocate General Tesauro

Mr President,

Members of the Court,

1. In these proceedings, the Court is asked to interpret Article 30 of the EEC Treaty and Article 14 of Council Directive 79/112/EEC of 18 December 1978 on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the labelling, presentation and advertising of foodstuffs for sale to the ultimate consumer.

2. I will briefly summarize the facts. Peeters, the defendant in the main action, is established in Belgium in the Flemish-speaking region, where it markets mineral waters whose labels are printed solely in French or in German.

3. Prior to examining the substance of the question, I will briefly consider the problem of whether the Court has jurisdiction to give a reply to the question referred by the national court.

4. On this point it is sufficient to look at the decided cases of the Court, which has held that, by virtue of the division of functions between national courts and the Court of Justice, it is for the national court, which must accept the responsibility for the subsequent judicial decision, to assess, with full possession of the facts, the necessity for, and the relevance of, the questions which it refers.

5. I now turn to the substance of the question. It seems clear, even on a first reading, that the national provision in question is more restrictive than Article 14 of the directive inasmuch as, by making compulsory the use of the language of the region in which the foodstuffs are sold, the national provision, unlike the corresponding Community-law provision, does not allow the possible use of another language which could easily be understood by purchasers and does not allow any derogation in the event of consumer information being guaranteed by other means.

6. That argument is unfounded inasmuch as, in reality, such an interpretation does not take sufficient account of the more general context in which the provision appears.

7. In the context of the preliminary-ruling procedure, the assessment of the facts necessary in order to ascertain whether it is effectively guaranteed that the consumer is informed in the present case falls within the jurisdiction of the national court, which must, in making its own findings, take into account the fact that, given the purpose of the Community-law provision in question, the reference to comprehensibility of the language is aimed less at linguistic comprehensibility as such than at ensuring that the actual content of the particulars on the label can be deciphered. Maintaining that approach, it will then have to take into account not only any possible multilingualism in the country but also, in particular, the nature of the product and consumers' familiarity therewith, as well as the existence of other packaging of the same product which may carry the required particulars in a more accessible language, thus allowing a sort of translation by approximation.

8. In the light of the foregoing considerations, I conclude by proposing that the Court should reply as follows to the question referred by the Rechtbank van Koophandel, Louvain:

1 Original language: Italian.

2 OJ 1979 L 33, p. 1.

3 See in particular the judgment in Case C-231/89 Gmurzynska-Bscher v Oberfinanzdirektion Kolt [1990] ECR I-4003, paragraphs 19, 20, 22 and 23; judgment in Case C-297/88 Massam Dzodz i v Belgian State [1990] ECR I-3763, paragraphs 34, 35. 39 and 40

4 See second, third, fourth and seventh recitals to the preamble.

5 See in particular the judgment in Case 220/81 Criminal proceeding against Timothy Frederick Robertson and others [1982] ECR 2349, paragraphs 11, 12 and 13: judgment in Case 27/80 Criminal proceedings against Anton Adriaan Fietje [1980] ECR 3839.

6 It is worth noting that, bv a decision of 28 September 1987, the Correctionele Rechtbank (Criminal Court) Mechelen, decided, with regard to the sale of bottles of Coca Cola featuring a label in German, that such a practice was in accordance with Article 14 of Directive 79/112, and refused to apply Article 10 of the Royal Decree of 2 October 1980 (see Journal del Tribunaux, 1988, No 5448, p. 48). That decision, however has been appealed against in the Hof van Beroep (Court of Appeal), Antwerp, which has not vet made a ruling For analogous decisions from courts in the Netherlands applying the above criteria, sec Van Bunnen, L'emploi des langues dans l'etiquetage et le droit communautaire, Journal des Tribunaux, 1988, No 5448, p 41