Case C-597/17: Judgment of the Court (Sixth Chamber) of 27 June 2019 (request for a preliminary ruling from the Grondwettelijk Hof — Belgium) — Belgisch Syndicaat van Chiropraxie, Bart Vandendries and Others v Ministerraad (Reference for a preliminary ruling — Taxation — Common system of value added tax (VAT) — Directive 2006/112/EC — Article 132(1)(c) — Exemptions — Medical and paramedical professions — Chiropractic and osteopathy — Article 98 — Annex III, points 3 and 4 — Medicinal products and medical devices — Reduced rate — Supply as part of therapeutic interventions or treatments — Standard rate — Supply as part of aesthetic interventions or treatments — Principle of fiscal neutrality — Maintenance of the effects of national legislation incompatible with EU law)
Date: 2019-06-27
Institutions: Court of Justice
Subjects: VAT, alternative medicine, health care, health care profession, medical device, medicinal product, national law, tax exemption, tax relief, therapeutics








C_2019280EN.01000301.xml










19.8.2019   


EN


Official Journal of the European Union


C 280/3






Judgment of the Court (Sixth Chamber) of 27 June 2019 (request for a preliminary ruling from the Grondwettelijk Hof — Belgium) — Belgisch Syndicaat van Chiropraxie, Bart Vandendries and Others v Ministerraad
(Case C-597/17) (1)

(Reference for a preliminary ruling - Taxation - Common system of value added tax (VAT) - Directive 2006/112/EC - Article 132(1)(c) - Exemptions - Medical and paramedical professions - Chiropractic and osteopathy - Article 98 - Annex III, points 3 and 4 - Medicinal products and medical devices - Reduced rate - Supply as part of therapeutic interventions or treatments - Standard rate - Supply as part of aesthetic interventions or treatments - Principle of fiscal neutrality - Maintenance of the effects of national legislation incompatible with EU law)
(2019/C 280/03)
Language of the case: Dutch

Referring court

Grondwettelijk Hof

Parties to the main proceedings


Applicants: Belgisch Syndicaat van Chiropraxie, Bart Vandendries and Others Plast.Surg. and Others, Belgian Society for Private Clinics and Others

Defendant: Ministerraad

Operative part of the judgment







1)


Article 132(1)(c) of Council Directive 2006/112/EC of 28 November 2006 on the common system of value added tax must be interpreted as not restricting the application of the exemption it provides to supplies provided by practitioners of a medical or paramedical profession regulated by the legislation of the Member State concerned.










2)


Article 98 of Directive 2006/112, read in conjunction with points (3) and (4) to Annex III to that directive, must be interpreted as not precluding national legislation which differentiates between medicinal products and medical devices supplied in the context of therapeutic interventions or treatments, on the one hand, and medicinal products and medical devices supplied in the context of interventions or treatments intended exclusively for aesthetic purposes, on the other hand, by excluding the latter from the benefit of the reduced rate of value added tax (VAT) applicable to the former.










3)


In circumstances such as those at issue in the main proceedings, a national court may not make use of a national provision empowering it to maintain certain effects of a measure which has been annulled in order to maintain temporarily the effect of national provisions which it has found incompatible with Directive 2006/112 until they are made to comply with that directive, with a view, on the one hand, to limiting the risks of legal uncertainty resulting from the retroactive effect of that annulment and, on the other hand, to avoiding the application of a national regime predating those provisions and which is incompatible with that directive.






(1)  OJ C 427 of 26.11.2018