About the judgment:
On 11 April 2024, the CJEU delivered the judgment in case Gabel Industria Tessile and Canavesi further complicating the already messy picture on horizontal direct effect and the circumstances in which it is permitted.
The case concerned the reimbursement for unduly paid electricity excise duties, which under Italian law, undertakings were required to seek not from the state but from their electricity suppliers. These excise duties had been found incompatible with Directive 2008/118 which governed the matter. However, the prohibition of horizontal direct effect barred the Italian undertakings from invoking it against their suppliers.
In a strikingly short judgment, the CJEU further developed and solidified another route to the direct effect of directives, namely, allowing it when national law provides for it. The judgment also highlights the relationship between direct effect and national procedural autonomy.
The judgment will be of interest to those working on the principle of direct effect, general principles of EU Law at large, and the EU legal system at large.