Edilizia Industriale Siderurgica Srl (Edis) v Ministero delle Finanze.
Date: 1998-09-15
15 It is settled case-law that the interpretation which, in the exercise of the jurisdiction conferred upon it by Article 177 of the Treaty, the Court gives to a rule of Community law clarifies and defines where necessary the meaning and scope of that rule as it must be or ought to have been understood and applied from the time of its coming into force.  It follows that the rule thus interpreted may, and must, be applied by the courts even to legal relationships arising and established before the judgment ruling on the request for interpretation, provided that in other respects the conditions enabling an action relating to the application of that rule to be brought before the courts having jurisdiction are satisfied (see, in particular, Case 61/79 Amministrazione delle Finanze dello Stato v Denkavit Italiana [1980] ECR 1205, paragraph 16, and Joined Cases C-197/94 and C-252/94 Bautiaa and Société Française Maritime [1996] ECR I-505, paragraph 47).
16 According to the same case-law, having regard to those principles, it is only exceptionally that the Court may limit the effects of a judgment ruling on a request for interpretation (Denkavit Italiana, paragraph 17, and Bautiaa and Société Française Maritime, paragraph 48, both cited above).
17 It is clear from the foregoing that whilst the effects of a judgment of the Court providing an interpretation normally date back to the time at which the rule interpreted came into force, it is also necessary, if that interpretation is to be applied by the national court to facts predating that judgment, for the detailed procedural rules governing legal proceedings under national law to have been complied with as regards matters both of form and of substance.
18 The application of those detailed rules must not therefore be confused with a limitation on the effects of a judgment of the Court ruling on a request for interpretation of a provision of Community law.  The consequence of such a limitation is to deprive litigants, who would normally be in a position, under their national procedural rules, to exercise the rights conferred on them by the Community provision concerned, of the right to rely on it in support of their claims.
19 It is also clear from settled case-law that, in the absence of Community rules governing the refund of national taxes 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, however, that such rules are not less favourable than those governing similar domestic actions and do not render virtually impossible or excessively difficult the exercise of rights conferred by Community law (see Rewe, paragraph 5, Comet, paragraphs 13 and 16, both cited above, and, more recently, Case C-312/93 Peterbroeck v Belgian State [1995] ECR I-4599, paragraph 12).
20 The Court has thus recognised that it is compatible with Community law to lay down reasonable limitation periods for bringing proceedings in the interests of legal certainty which protects both the taxpayer and the administration concerned (see Rewe, paragraph 5, Comet, paragraphs 17 and 18, and Denkavit Italiana, paragraph 23, all cited above; see also Case C-261/95 Palmisani v INPS [1997] ECR I-4025, paragraph 28, and Case C-90/94 Haahr Petroleum v  benrå Havn and Others [1997] ECR I-4085, paragraph 48).  The fact that the Court has given a preliminary ruling on the interpretation of the provision of Community law in question is immaterial in that respect (see, to that effect, Rewe, cited above, paragraph 7).
22 It should be noted that in paragraph 19 of Barra, cited above, the Court held that Community law precludes a national legislative provision which restricts repayment of a duty held to be contrary to the Treaty by a judgment of the Court solely to plaintiffs who brought an action for repayment before the delivery of that judgment.  Such a provision simply deprives natural and legal persons who do not meet that condition of the right to obtain repayment of amounts paid but not due and therefore renders the exercise of the rights conferred on them by Community law impossible.
24 It is clear from those judgments that a Member State may not adopt provisions making repayment of a tax held to be contrary to Community law by a judgment of the Court, or whose incompatibility with Community law is apparent from such a judgment, subject to conditions relating specifically to that tax which are less favourable than those which would otherwise be applied to repayment of the tax in question.
25 Accordingly, without its being necessary to examine the conditions under which that case-law should be applied to the judicial authorities of the Member States, it need merely be pointed out, first, that the interpretation given by the Corte Suprema di Cassazione related to a national provision which had been in force for several years when judgment was delivered in Ponente Carni and, second, that that provision is concerned not only with repayment of the charge at issue in that judgment but also with that of all registration charges levied by the Italian Government.  It follows that the ratio in Barra and Deville, cited above, is to be distinguished from this case.
26 The answer to the first question must therefore be that the fact that the Court has given a preliminary ruling interpreting a provision of Community law without limiting the temporal effects of its judgment does not affect the right of a Member State to impose a time-limit under national law within which, on penalty of being barred, proceedings for repayment of charges levied in breach of that provision must be commenced.
The second question
33 As the Court has held on several occasions, a comparison of the national systems shows that the problem of disputing charges which have been unlawfully claimed or refunding charges which have been paid when not due is settled in different ways in the various Member States, and even within a single Member State, according to the various kinds of taxes or charges in question. In certain cases, objections or claims of this type are subject to specific procedural conditions and time-limits under the law with regard both to complaints submitted to the tax authorities and to legal proceedings.  In other cases, claims for repayment of charges which were paid but not due must be brought before the ordinary courts, mainly in the form of claims for the refunding of sums paid but not owed, such actions being available for varying lengths of time, in some cases for the limitation period laid down under the general law (see Case 68/79 Just v Ministry for Fiscal Affairs [1980] ECR 501, paragraphs 22 and 23; Denkavit Italiana, cited above, paragraphs 23 and 24; Case 811/79 Amministrazione delle Finanze dello Stato v Ariete [1980] ECR 2545, paragraphs 10 and 11, and Case 826/79 Amministrazione delle Finanze dello Stato v Mireco [1980] ECR 2559, paragraphs 11 and 12).
34 This diversity between national systems derives mainly from the lack of Community rules on the refunding of national charges levied though not due.  In such circumstances, as pointed out in paragraph 19 of this judgment, 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).
35 As regards the latter principle, the Court, as pointed out in paragraph 20 of this judgment, has held that it is compatible with Community law to lay down reasonable limitation periods 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 payments, appears reasonable.
36 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 (see, to that effect, Joined Cases 66/79, 127/79 and 128/79 Amministrazione delle Finanze dello Stato v Salumi [1980] ECR 1237, paragraph 21).  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.
37 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.
38 In this case, as the Court has pointed out in paragraph 25 above, the time-limit at issue applies not only to repayment of the contested registration charge but also to that of all governmental charges of that kind.  Moreover, according to information provided by the Italian Government and not disputed, a similar time-limit also applies to actions for repayment of certain indirect taxes.  Nor does it appear from the wording of the provision at issue that it applies only to actions based on Community law. Furthermore, as the Advocate General observed in points 62 to 64 of his Opinion, it is clear from the case-law of the Corte Suprema di Cassazione that time-limits relating to taxes apply also to actions for repayment of charges or dues levied under laws that have been declared incompatible with the Italian Constitution.
39 The answer to the second question must therefore be that 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 of three years, by way of derogation from the ordinary rules governing actions between private individuals for the recovery of sums paid but not due, for which the period allowed is more favourable, provided that that time-limit applies in the same way to actions based on Community law for repayment of such charges as to those based on national law.
The third question
44 It is clear from the answer given to the second question that Community law does not in principle prohibit a Member State from resisting actions for repayment of duties levied in breach of Community law by relying on a time-limit under national law of three years.
45 It is true that in paragraph 23 of Emmott, cited above, the Court held that, until such time as a directive has been properly transposed, a defaulting Member State may not rely on an individual's delay in initiating proceedings against it in order to protect rights conferred on him by the provisions of a directive and that a period laid down by national law within which proceedings must be initiated cannot begin to run before that time.
46 However, as was confirmed by the Court in paragraph 26 of Johnson, cited above, it is clear from the judgment in Steenhorst-Neerings, cited above, that the solution adopted in Emmott was justified by the particular circumstances of that case, in which a time-bar had the result of depriving the plaintiff in the main proceedings of any opportunity whatever to rely on her right to equal treatment under a Community directive (see also Haahr Petroleum, cited above, paragraph 52, and Joined Cases C-114/95 and C-115/95 Texaco and Olieselskabet Danmark [1997] ECR I-4263, paragraph 48).
47 The Court thus held in Fantask and Others, cited above, that Community law does not prevent a Member State which has not properly transposed Directive 69/335 from resisting actions for repayment of duties levied in breach thereof by relying on a limitation period under national law of five years reckoned from the date on which those duties became payable.
48 Moreover, having regard to the documents before the Court and the arguments presented at the hearing, it does not appear that the conduct of the Italian authorities, in conjunction with the existence of the contested time-limit, had the effect in this case, as it did in Emmott, of depriving the plaintiff company of any opportunity of enforcing its rights before the national courts.