✍ Scribed by Stephen Weatherill
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
the Commission issued COM (89) 162, which is a proposal for a Directive designed to establish a Community legal framework to guarantee product safety. Such a regime would have the dual aim of securing free trade while also maintaining effective consumer protection. This paper demonstrates the vital role which would be ptayed by standards in such a framework and explains how Community law can prevent a Member State adopting a purely domestic approach to standards of safety and quality. The paper investigates the extent to which the United Kingdom's statutory general requirement to supply only safe goods, introduced in 1987, constitutes a model for a parallel Community initiative. The paper concludes by emphasising that the twin goals of free trade and consumer protection can only be achieved through a proper resource commitment to effective standards-making. COMMISSION V IRELAND --STANDARDS AND COMMUNITY LAW The recent decision of the E u r o p e a n Court of Justice in Case 4 5 / 8 7 C o m m i s s i o n v l r e l a n d , ~ in which the terms of the tender for the D u n d a l k W a t e r S c h e m e were held to contravene Article 30 E E C , may a p p e a r at first blush to have little to do with c o n s u m e r law. It is submitted, however, that the Court's insistence that Stares look b e y o n d the detail of their own national standards systems has significant implications b e y o n d the particular area of public purchasing. This was the first time that Article 30 has been applied to the terms of a public works contract. 2 H o w e v e r , the o u t c o m e of the case was not surprising. N o new legal principles were established. A clause included in the contract specification for the D u n d a l k W a t e r Supply A u g m e n t a t i o n S c h e m e p r o v i d e d that the asbestos cement pressure pipes were required to conform to Irish S t a n d a r d 188:1975, drawn up by the Institute for Industrial Research and Standards (IIRS). It had been m a d e clear to a prospective t e n d e r e r that Spanish pipes, not certified as complying with the Irish S t a n d a r d
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