Report of the Judge-Rapporteur in Case C-293/91

I — Facts

1. Under Article 19 of the directive referred to below, the Member States were required to adopt the measures necessary for compliance with the directive no later than 30 July 1988.

2. On 26 April 1989, the Commission, not having received any communication from the French Government regarding measures for the implementation of the directive, invited the latter, in accordance with the procedure prescribed by Article 169 of the EEC Treaty, to submit its observations within a period of two months.

3. On 26 March 1990, the Commission delivered a reasoned opinion to the French Republic stating that France had not communicated to the Commission the laws, regulations and administrative provisions by which it considered its obligations under Directive 85/374/EEC to have been fulfilled, or had as yet failed to adopt the measures necessary to comply therewith and had, therefore, failed to fulfil its obligations under the Treaty and the directive.

4. Receiving no reply, the Commission brought the present action.

II — Written procedure

5. The Commission's action was lodged at the Court Registry on 21 November 1991.

6. The Commission claims that the Court should: (i) declare that, by failing to communicate the laws, regulations and administrative provisions by which it considers itself to have fulfilled its obligations under Council Directive 85/374/EEC on the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States concerning liability for defective products, or by failing to adopt the measures necessary to comply therewith, the French Republic has failed to fulfil its obligations under that directive and under the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community; (ii) order the French Republic to pay the costs.

7. The French Government does not deny the alleged failure to fulfil obligations.

8. The Court, upon hearing the Report of the Judge-Rapporteur and the Opinion of the Advocate General, has decided not to initiate preparatory inquiries and, with the consent of the parties, to apply Article 44a of its Rules of Procedure.

III — Pleas in law and arguments of the parties

9. The Commission considers that the French authorities have failed to introduce the legislation required to implement the abovementioned directive; in any case, the Commission has not received any communication to the effect that such legislation has already been adopted.

10. The French Government wishes to point out that the rules of the directive concerned introduce the principle of liability without fault and that, although they resemble to some degree the rules to be found in the Civil Code and in the case-law, the question of their integration into French law has posed a number of problems, in so far as they relate only to safety defects in products, cover only certain classes of damage and concern only the liability of producers. Under French law, on the other hand, product liability focuses primarily on protection against latent defects, thus imposing obligations on the vendor quite separately from the producer. It has, therefore, proved necessary to reconcile different legal approaches, which did not concur on all points. Lastly, the French Government wishes to inform the Court that a draft law was tabled before the Assemblée Nationale (French Parliament), but could not be debated during the Autumn 1991 Session, owing to pressure on the Parliamentary timetable. The draft law was given a first reading by the Assemblée Nationale on 11 June 1992.

M. Diez de Velasco

Judge-Rapporteur

1 Language of the case: French.