Keywords

Summary



Keywords

1 Community law - Direct effect - National charges incompatible with Community law - Reimbursement - Procedures - Application of national law - Time-limits - Permissible - Conditions - Observance of the principle of effectiveness of Community law - Observance of the principle of equivalence of conditions for proceedings for recovery with those applicable to similar claims under domestic law

2 Community law - Direct effect - National charges incompatible with Community law - Reimbursement - Procedures - Possibility of enforcing against individuals national rules concerning time-limits before the proper transposition of Community law - Permissible - Conditions

Summary

3 In the absence of Community rules on the refunding 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 jurisdiction and to lay down the detailed procedural rules governing actions for safeguarding 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).

As regards the principle of effectiveness, it is compatible with Community law to lay down reasonable time-limits for bringing proceedings in the interests of legal certainty which protects both the taxpayer and the administration concerned. Such time-limits are not liable to render virtually impossible or excessively difficult the exercise of rights conferred by Community law. In that regard, a time-limit of three years under national law, reckoned from the date of the contested payment, appears reasonable.

Observance of the principle of equivalence implies, for its part, that the procedural rule at issue applies 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 favourable rules governing recovery under national law to all actions for repayment of charges or dues levied in breach of Community law. Thus, Community law does not preclude the legislation of a Member State from laying down, alongside a limitation period applicable under the ordinary law to actions between private individuals for the recovery of sums paid but not due, special detailed rules, which are less favourable, governing claims and legal proceedings to challenge the imposition of charges and other levies. The position would be different only if those detailed rules applied solely to actions based on Community law for the repayment of such charges or levies.

It follows that Community law does not preclude the application of a national provision which, for all actions for repayment of customs charges, imposes a special time-limit of five, and subsequently three, years, instead of the ordinary limitation period of 10 years for actions for the recovery of sums paid but not due, provided that that time-limit, which is similar to that imposed for certain taxes, applies in the same way to actions based on Community law for repayment of such charges as to those based on national law.

4 Community law does not prohibit a Member State from resisting actions for repayment of charges levied in breach of Community law by relying on a time-limit under national law even if that Member State has not yet amended its national rules in order to render them compatible with those provisions, provided, first, that that time-limit is not less favourable for actions based on Community law than for those based on domestic law and that it does not render virtually impossible or excessively difficult the exercise of rights conferred by Community law and, second, provided that it is not established that the conduct of the national authorities, in conjunction with the existence of the contested time-limit, had the effect of depriving the plaintiff of any opportunity of enforcing his rights before the national courts.