The entire cannabis conversation in Europe is still in very sticky legal territory, no matter the ongoing victories and the ones obviously on the way. This includes, at a regional, EU level, a definition of what CBD is (namely not a narcotic substance), but a concerted failure, so far, by legislatures and regulators to honor or accept that by codifying it into national law.
This is why, much like in other legalizing jurisdictions, so many of these reforms have come first via court challenge rather than legislative leadership—and further using any aspect of EU law to create that legal challenge—even if it seems counterintuitive.
In Germany right now, a ground-breaking and well overdue case is finally headed to court. At the heart of the same, much like the Kanavape case in France, is the final definition of what CBD and hemp is, how much (or little) THC is allowed, and the right to sell not only extracts but the flower itself.
There are several reasons for this—all legal window dressing at this point. It starts with a lingering resistance to reform in many European legislatures, as well as the now trotted-out excuse that cannabis reform, even of the CBD kind, depends on reforming federal narcotics acts.
In Germany, the conventional wisdom so far, on both the CBD and full reform question, has used this as the excuse for why this may not be done quickly. Yet Germany, with a now-established medical market, and, if the new government is to be believed, full recreational reform on the way, has even less excuse for not dealing definitively with the issue.
On the CBD front, there is clearly no excuse anymore for embarrassing incidents like the police