Judgment — ECLI:EU:C:1998:403
Date: 1998-09-15
Language of the case: Italian
Court formation: Full Court
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Taxation;Principles, objectives and tasks of the Treaties
Concepts: Recovery of undue payment;Direct effect
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Italy

Summary of the Judgmen t 
1. Acts of the institutions — Directives — Direct effect — Consequences — Possibility of enforcing 
against individuals national rules concerning time-limits for instituting proceedings before 
proper transposition of a directive — Whether permissible — Conditions 
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SUMMARY — JOINED CASES C-279/96, C-280/96 AND C-281/96 
2. Community law — Direct effect — National charges incompatible with Community law — 
Repayment — Procedures — Application of national law — Payment of interest 
1. Community law does not prevent a 
Member State from resisting actions for 
repayment of charges levied in breach of 
a directive by relying on a time-limit under 
national law which is reckoned from the 
date of payment of the charges in ques­
tion, even if, at that date, the directive had 
not yet been properly transposed into 
national law, provided that that time-limit 
is not less favourable for actions based on 
Community law than for actions based on 
domestic law and does not render virtu­
ally impossible or excessively difficult the 
exercise of rights conferred by Commu­
nity law and provided also that it has not 
been established that the conduct of the 
national authorities, in conjunction with 
the existence of the contested time-limit, 
has had the effect of depriving the plaintiff 
of any opportunity of enforcing his rights 
before the national courts. 
2. In the absence of Community rules on 
reimbursement of national charges levied 
though not due, it is for the domestic legal 
system of each Member State to designate 
the courts and tribunals having jurisdic­
tion and to lay down the detailed proce­
dural rules governing actions for safe­
guarding rights which individuals derive 
from Community law, provided, first, that 
such rules are not less favourable than 
those governing similar domestic actions 
(principle of equivalence) and, second, that 
they do not render virtually impossible or 
excessively difficult the exercise of rights 
conferred by Community law (principle 
of effectiveness). 
Detailed national rules for reimbursement 
conform with the principle of equivalence 
if they apply without distinction to actions 
alleging infringements of Community law 
and to those alleging infringements of 
national law, with respect to the same kind 
of charges or dues. That principle cannot, 
however, be interpreted as obliging a 
Member State to extend its most favour­
able rules governing recovery under 
national law to all actions for repayment 
of charges or dues levied in breach of 
Community law. 
It follows that Community law does not 
preclude, in the event of the repayment of 
charges levied in breach thereof, payment 
of interest calculated by methods less 
favourable than those applicable under the 
ordinary rules governing actions for the 
recovery of sums paid but not due between 
private individuals, provided that those 
methods apply in the same way to such 
actions brought under Community law as 
to those brought under national law. 
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