CELEX: C2004/300/69
Language: en
Date: 2004-12-04 00:00:00
Title: Case C-437/04: Action brought on 15 October 2004 by the Commission of the European Communities against the Kingdom of Belgium

4.12.2004   
            
            
               EN
            
            
               Official Journal of the European Union
            
            
               C 300/36
            
         Action brought on 15 October 2004 by the Commission of the European Communities against the Kingdom of Belgium
   (Case C-437/04)
   (2004/C 300/69)
   An action against the Kingdom of Belgium was brought before the Court of Justice of the European Communities on 15 October 2004 by the Commission of the European Communities, represented by J.-F. Pasquier, acting as Agent, with an address for service in Luxembourg.
   The Commission of the European Communities claims that the Court should:
   
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               declare that, by imposing a tax which infringes the European Communities' fiscal immunity, the Kingdom of Belgium has failed to fulfil its obligations under Article 3 of the Protocol on the privileges and immunities of the European Communities;
            
         
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               order the Kingdom of Belgium to pay the costs.
            
         Pleas in law and main arguments
   The imposition by an Ordonnance Régionale of 23 July 1992 of a regional tax on occupiers of buildings and owners of real property rights over certain buildings situated within the territory of the Région de Bruxelles-Capitale is an infringement of the Communities' fiscal immunity under Article 3 of the Protocol on the privileges and immunities of the European Communities of 8 April 1965. That Ordonnance has innovated by comparison to the previous legislation by adding to the tax imposed on occupiers, a tax on owners in the event of commercial occupancy of a building with more than a certain floor area. As the drafting history of the Ordonnance of 23 July 1992 shows, such taxation of owners is, in fact, a legal device intended to circumvent the fiscal immunity of certain persons or institutions occupying buildings. It is on those persons and among them the Communities that the economic burden of the tax actually falls, either because of contractual stipulations in leases, under which they are to bear all rates and taxes on the building, unless they obtain exemption therefrom as regards the lessor, or because of its effect on the rental. According to the case-law of the Court of Justice, any legal provision which, without expressly subjecting the Community to a tax, has the express aim and effect of making the Community, even indirectly but nonetheless compulsorily, bear a tax, infringes the principle of immunity.