ABSTRACT
Despite the elimination of tariff and quota restrictions between Member States envisaged in the Treaty of Rome, free movement within the European Union has continued to be impeded by barriers such as technical legislation, and the national standards used as back-up. In a first attempt to overcome this problem, a series of ‘Old Approach’ directives were adopted in which specific requirements, identical across the Union, were laid down for single products, based where possible on Europe-wide standards derived from national standards. It was a slow, continuing process as Table 7.1 demonstrates.
