Home country control

Home Country Control (also Country of Origin rule) is the rule of EU law, specifically of Single Market law, that determines which laws will apply to goods or services that cross the border of Member States. EU law requires that the goods or services produced legally in one Member States should be allowed unhindered access to markets of other Member States. The latter are not allowed to apply their laws except in specific circumstances. When they are allowed to do so, this will be under a specifically developed test called General Good Test.

The provision underlying the four freedoms (and therefore also the Home Country Control) is the prohibition of discrimination based on nationality: Article 12(ex 6) of the EC Treaty. Over the course of years, however, non-discriminatory behaviour also became prohibited, in as much as it created obstacles to trade between Member States.

In the sphere of goods, what these “non-discriminatory� obstacles were and how they were to be removed was clarified in Cassis (C-120/78, [1979] ECR 649) and Keck (Joined Cases C-267 and 268/91, 1993 [ECR] I-6097) cases of the Court of Justice. In services, this was done in Säger (C-76/90, [1991] ECR I-4221), and in establishment in Gebhard (C-55/94, [1995] ECR I-4165).

The power of these cases lies in making the products and services legally made in one state (Home State) available in other state (Host State), where the latter is only exceptionally able to apply its law to the said good or service. In other words, once a good or a service gains a “passport� in its Home State, it can be freely exported into any other Member State.