(post) Keck Case Law on the Freedom to Provide Services

equivalent effect an expansive reading and listed 19 types of prohibited rules andpractises. All these factors influenced the Court in taking quasi-legislative action,becoming itself the driving force for the building of a common market. 18 The mostimportant consequence of Dassonville and following cases was that the Court empoweredthe main interest group for removing trade barriers, the European traders and producers, tochallenge national legislation. 19 Therefore, the pressure was on the Member States tojustify legislation contrary to Art 34 TFEU.1.2 Limitation by <strong>Keck</strong>The Court’s case law constituted a great incentive to move towards a common market, butthe breadth of the Dassonville-formula turned out to be a double-edged sword. Theformula, which did not seem to provide limits to judicial review, was increasingly used asan instrument to attack any national legislation which stood in the way of free trade – likethe famous Sunday trading cases show 20 – and this led to an overload of cases. Moreover,national courts clearly signalled their disagreement with the lack of sensible limits andguidelines by simply not applying the formula. 21 Finally, the Court faced heavy criticism18Stone Sweet, Judicial Construction, pp. 133 f; see also Maduro, “Reforming the Market or the State?Article 30 and the European Constitution: Economic Freedom and Political Rights”, 3(1) ELJ (1997),55, at 59.19For the direct effect see <strong>Case</strong> 74/76, Iannelli & Volpi v. Meroni, [1977] ECR 557.20See <strong>Case</strong>s C-145/88, Torfaen, [1989] ECR 3851 and C-169/91, Stoke-on-Trent, [1992] ECR I-6635; forthe academic discussion see for example Barnard, “Sunday Trading: A Drama in Five Acts”, 57(3)MLR (1994), 449; Micklitz, The Politics of Judicial Co-operation in the EU (CUP, 2005), pp. 43 ff.21See Jarvis, The Application of EC <strong>Law</strong> by National Courts – The free movement of Goods (OUP, 1998),pp. 439 ff; Stone Sweet, Judicial Construction, p. 140; see to these developments also Maduro in6