Judgment — ECLI:EU:T:2000:50
Date: 2000-02-23
Language of the case: Dutch
Court formation: Second Chamber
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Financial provisions;Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC;Privileges and immunities;Own resources
Concepts: Privileges and immunities;General;Tax on salaries
Procedure: Staff cases - unfounded;Action for damages - unfounded

SUMMARY — JOINED CASES T-223/97 AND T-17/98 
Summary 
1. Officials - Conditions of employment of other servants - Auxiliary staff — 
Auxiliary European Parliament session interpreters — Subject to Community income 
tax — Legality — Consequences — Obligation on the Parliament to levy Community 
income tax 
(Conditions of employment of other servants, Art. 78; Council Regulation 
No 260/68, Arts 2 and 9) 
2. Privileges and immunities of the European Communities — Officials and servants 
of the Communities — Exemption from national tax on emoluments paid by the 
Communities — Freelance interpreters engaged by the European Parliament 
(Protocol on the privileges and immunities of the European Communities, Art. 13; 
Conditions of employment of other servants, Art. 78; Council Regulation No 260/68, 
Arts 2 and 9) 
1. When the Parliament engages freelance interpreters as auxiliary servants on the 
basis of Article 78 of the Conditions of employment of other servants, it is entitled 
to deduct Community tax from their remuneration pursuant to the first indent of 
Article 2 of Regulation No 260/68 laying down the conditions and procedure for 
applying the tax for the benefit of the European Communities. 
In that regard, since the Parliament has a legal basis for levying Community tax on 
the remuneration of interpreters engaged on that basis, it is correspondingly required 
to levy that tax and, in light of the budgetary aspect of the tax, it has no discretion 
in the matter. When it states, in Article 2, that persons coming under the 
Conditions of employment of other servants 'shall be liable to ... [Community] tax' 
and, in Article 9, that '[t]he tax proceeds shall be entered as revenue in the budgets 
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KOOYMAN AND VAN EYNDE-NEUTENS v PARLIAMENT 
of the Communities', Regulation No 260/68 leaves no room for doubt as to the 
obligation imposed on the Parliament in that connection. 
(see paras 53, 64 and 64) 
See: 15/76 and 16/76 France v Commission [1979] ECR 321, para. 28; T-109/96 
Gebhard v Commission [1998] ECR II-2785, para. 45 
2. Since the Parliament lawfully levied Community tax on the remuneration of a 
freelance interpreter engaged as an auxiliary servant under Article 78 of the 
Conditions of employment of other servants, that remuneration is correspondingly 
exempt from any national tax pursuant to the second indent of Article 13 of the 
Protocol on the privileges and immunities of the European Communities. 
(see para. 68) 
See: C-229/98 Vander Zwalmen and Massart [1999].ECR I-7113, para. 24 
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