| Pubblico Ministero v Ratti | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Court | European Court of Justice |
| Citation(s) | (1979) Case 148/78, [1979] ECR 1629 |
| Keywords | |
| Direct effect | |
Pubblico Ministero v Ratti (1979) Case 148/78 is an EU law case, concerning the conflict of law between a national legal system and European Union law.
Mr Tullio Ratti claimed that he should not have to comply with a stricter Italian law that required him to label his solvents, on the ground that it conflicted with two Directives. Mr Ratti sold solvents and varnishes, some of which were imported from Germany that complied with two Directives. Directive 73/173 (adopted 4 June 1973, to be implemented 8 December 1974) and Directive 77/728 (adopted 7 November 1977, to be implemented 9 November 1979) required solvents and varnishes to be packaged and labelled specially. Mr Ratti complied with the Directives, but an Italian law of 1963 was stricter in some respects. Mr Ratti was prosecuted for failure to comply with the Italian law. Directive 73/173 was already meant to have been implemented, but Directive 77/728 was not yet required to be implemented: Italy had not changed the law at all. Mr Ratti argued that compliance with the Directives, rather than Italian law, was enough. The court in Milan referred to the ECJ whether Mr Ratti had to comply.
A solvent is a substance that dissolves a solute, resulting in a solution. A solvent is usually a liquid but can also be a solid, a gas, or a supercritical fluid. The quantity of solute that can dissolve in a specific volume of solvent varies with temperature. Common uses for organic solvents are in dry cleaning, as paint thinners, as nail polish removers and glue solvents, in spot removers, in detergents and in perfumes (ethanol). Water is a solvent for polar molecules and the most common solvent used by living things; all the ions and proteins in a cell are dissolved in water within a cell. Solvents find various applications in chemical, pharmaceutical, oil, and gas industries, including in chemical syntheses and purification processes.
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central and Western Europe, lying between the Baltic and North Seas to the north, and the Alps, Lake Constance and the High Rhine to the south. It borders Denmark to the north, Poland and the Czech Republic to the east, Austria and Switzerland to the south, France to the southwest, and Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands to the west.
Advocate General Reischl gave an opinion, speaking against the possibility of horizontal direct effect. [1]
The ECJ held that Mr Ratti was not bound by Italian law that was meant to be changed by Directive 73/173, but he was still bound by Italian law, which would later have to be changed under Directive 77/728 because its deadline for being implemented had not yet passed.
| “ | 22. Consequently a member state which has not adopted the implementing measures required by the Directive in the prescribed periods may not rely, as against individuals, on its own failure to perform the obligations which the Directive entails. | ” |
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