National Roads Authority v The Revenue Commissioners.
Date: 2017-01-19
31


It must be recalled, first, that it is the responsibility of the national court to define the legislative and factual context of the dispute before it (see, to that effect, judgment of 21 September 2016, Radgen, C‑478/15, EU:C:2016:705, paragraphs 27 and 32 and the case-law cited).
32


Secondly, in the context of the cooperation between the Court and the national courts provided for in Article 267 TFEU, it is solely for the national court before which a dispute has been brought, and which must assume responsibility for the subsequent judicial decision, to determine in the light of the particular circumstances of the case both the need for a preliminary ruling in order to enable it to deliver judgment and the relevance of the questions which it submits to the Court. The right to determine the questions to be put to the Court thus devolves on the national court alone and the parties to the main proceedings may not change their tenor (judgment of 16 October 2014, Welmory, C‑605/12, EU:C:2014:2298, paragraph 33 and the case-law cited).
36


It should be recalled that the second subparagraph of Article 13(1) of the VAT Directive provides for a limitation of the rule stated in the first subparagraph of that provision that bodies governed by public law are to be treated as non-taxable persons for VAT purposes in respect of the activities or transactions in which they engage as public authorities. That second subparagraph thus aims to restore the general rule set out in Article 2(1) and Article 9 of the VAT Directive, according to which any activity of an economic nature is in principle to be subject to VAT, and cannot therefore be construed narrowly (see, by analogy, judgment of 4 June 2009, SALIX Grundstücks-Vermietungsgesellschaft, C‑102/08, EU:C:2009:345, paragraphs 67 and 68).
37


However, that cannot mean that the second subparagraph of Article 13(1) of the VAT Directive should be interpreted in such a way that the derogation from treatment as a taxable person for VAT laid down in the first subparagraph of Article 13(1) of the directive for bodies governed by public law acting as public authorities is deprived of effectiveness (see, to that effect, judgment of 20 November 2003, Taksatorringen, C‑8/01, EU:C:2003:621, paragraphs 61 and 62, and of 25 March 2010, Commission v Netherlands, C‑79/09, not published, EU:C:2010:171, paragraph 49).
39


According to the Court’s case-law on that provision, first, what is envisaged here is the situation in which bodies governed by public law engage in activities which may also be engaged in, in competition with them, by private economic operators. The aim is to ensure that those private operators are not placed at a disadvantage because they are taxed while those bodies are not (see, to that effect, judgment of 25 March 2010, Commission v Netherlands, C‑79/09, not published, EU:C:2010:171, paragraph 90 and the case-law cited).
40


Secondly, that limitation of the rule that bodies governed by public law acting as public authorities are treated as non-taxable persons for VAT purposes is only a conditional limitation. Its application involves an assessment of economic circumstances (see, to that effect, judgment of 17 October 1989, Comune di Carpaneto Piacentino and Others, 231/87 and 129/88, EU:C:1989:381, paragraph 32).
41


Thirdly, the significant distortions of competition which treatment as non-taxable persons of bodies governed by public law acting as public authorities would lead to must be evaluated by reference to the activity in question, as such, without that evaluation relating to any particular market, and by reference not only to actual competition, but also to potential competition, provided that the possibility of a private operator entering the relevant market is real and not purely hypothetical (judgments of 25 March 2010, Commission v Netherlands, C‑79/09, not published, EU:C:2010:171, paragraph 91 and the case-law cited, and of 29 October 2015, Saudaçor, C‑174/14, EU:C:2015:733, paragraph 74).
42


The purely theoretical possibility of a private operator entering the relevant market, which is not borne out by any matter of fact, any objective evidence or any analysis of the market, cannot be assimilated to the existence of potential competition (judgment of 16 September 2008, Isle of Wight Council and Others, C‑288/07, EU:C:2008:505, paragraph 64).