33It thus appears that the purpose of Article 3(1) of Directive 85/374 is to ease the burden of having to determine the actual producer of the defective product in question. In that regard, it is apparent from the explanatory memorandum relating to Article 2 of the Commission’s proposal for a directive of 9 September 1976, which gave rise to Directive 85/374, taking into account that that article became, without substantive amendment, Article 3 of that directive, that the EU legislature considered that the protection of the consumer would be insufficient if the distributor could ‘refer’ the consumer to the producer, who might not be known to the consumer.
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