Objectives, effects and legal admissibility of creating restrictions on export of goods by individual EU Member States vis-à-vis third States

Abstract Export restrictions are measures applied by the Member States of the European Union with the aim of controlling the export of certain goods beyond their borders. Their application is, as a rule, prohibited under Article 35 TFEU, which guarantees the freedom to export goods between Member States as an element of the free movement of goods — a cornerstone of the internal market. However, this provision does not apply to restrictions on the free movement of goods between Member States and third countries. The regulation of such exports falls within the scope of the common commercial policy conducted by the European Union pursuant to Articles 206-207 TFEU. The purpose of this article is to analyse export restrictions on goods that are applied unilaterally by individual EU Member States in their relations with third countries. The legal permissibility of establishing certain restrictions on the export of goods to third countries derives from Regulation (EU) 2015/479 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 2015 on common rules for exports. Such restrictions may therefore be introduced only to the extent that the EU legislature — acting within the framework of the common commercial policy, which falls within the exclusive competence of the European Union — has authorised Member States to do so. This issue was recently confirmed, for the first time in the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, in its judgment of 13 November 2025 in Commission v Hungary, which will also be discussed in this article.