HUNGARIAN FOOD SUPPLY SECURITY MEASURES AND THEIR ASSESSMENT UNDER EU LAW

Abstract

In the new global order, the European Union is increasingly emerging as a geopolitical actor, while global crises – such as the pandemic, energy and raw material supply disruptions, and armed conflicts – have a direct impact on agricultural and food supply chains. In this environment, Member States are increasingly using national legal instruments aimed at preserving food supply security, while potentially coming into conflict with the principles of the EU internal market. The presentation examines how Member States’ restrictive measures adopted with reference to food supply security can be assessed in the light of EU law and in particular the established case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union. The analysis is carried out through three different instruments of Hungarian regulatory practice affecting EU fundamental freedoms: official food price regulation, state control over agricultural and food industry investments, and export restriction and notification mechanisms. The focus of the analysis is on how these national measures fit into the EU requirements on the free movement of goods and capital and the freedom to conduct a business, and how they can be interpreted within the framework of the justification tests consistently applied in EU case law – in particular, justification based on public interest, necessity and proportionality. The examined Hungarian agricultural and food supply measures are not only national crisis management tools, but also represent a “pushing” of the legal boundaries of the EU internal market. These measures highlight the structural tension that develops between the market-building logic of EU integration and the Member State autonomy (sovereignty) that increases in crisis situations, and which may play a decisive role in the development of the future global and internal governance model of the European Union. The analysis is facilitated by the fact that direct or indirect CJEU judgments have been issued in all three areas concerned, thus revealing the interpretation directions of the related EU law.