Ansaldo Energia SpA v Amministrazione delle Finanze dello Stato, Amministrazione delle Finanze dello Stato v Marine Insurance Consultants Srl and GMB Srl and Others v Amministrazione delle Finanze dello Stato.
Date: 1998-09-15
16 According to settled case-law of the Court of Justice, in the absence of Community rules governing the matter, 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 (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).
17 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, and Comet, paragraphs 17 and 18; see also Case 61/79 Amministrazione delle Finanze dello Stato v Denkavit Italiana [1980] ECR 1205, paragraph 23; 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).
18 As the Court has held in its judgments of today's date in Case C-231/96 Edis v Ministero delle Finanze, paragraph 44, and Case C-260/96 Ministero delle Finanze v Spac, paragraph 27, Community law does not in principle prohibit a Member State from making actions for repayment of charges levied in breach of Community law subject to a time-limit under national law of three years.
19 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.
20 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).
21 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 (see also Edis, paragraph 47, and Spac, paragraph 30, both cited above).
27 As pointed out in paragraph 16 of this judgment, in the absence of Community legislation governing a matter, it is for the domestic legal system of each Member State to designate the national courts and tribunals having jurisdiction and to lay down the detailed procedural rules governing actions for safeguarding rights which individuals derive from Community law.  However, such rules must not be less favourable than those governing similar domestic actions (principle of equivalence) and they must not render virtually impossible or excessively difficult the exercise of rights conferred by Community law (principle of effectiveness).
28 The Court has thus held that, in the absence of provisions of Community law regarding the reimbursement of charges improperly levied on the basis of Community regulations that have been declared invalid, it is for the national authorities to settle all ancillary questions relating to such reimbursement, such as the payment of interest, by applying their domestic rules regarding the rate of interest and the date from which interest must be calculated (Case 130/79 Express Dairy Foods v Intervention Board for Agricultural Produce [1980] ECR 1887, paragraphs 16 and 17; see also Case 26/74 Roquette Frères v Commission [1976] ECR 677, paragraphs 11 and 12).
29 It should also be noted that in two judgments of today's date (Case C-231/96 Edis v Ministero delle Finanze, paragraph 36, and Case C-260/96 Ministero delle Finanze v Spac, paragraph 20), the Court has held that detailed national rules governing repayment of sums paid but not due are in conformity with the principle of equivalence if they apply 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.
30 It follows that Community law does not preclude a Member State from laying down, with respect to interest, methods of calculation for repayment of charges improperly levied which are less favourable than those applicable to actions between private individuals for the recovery of sums paid but not due, provided that the methods in question apply without distinction to actions based on Community law and to those based on national law.  In this case, it does not appear from the wording of the rule at issue that it applies only to actions of the latter kind.
31 By its second question, the national court also seeks to ascertain to what extent the foregoing interpretation might be affected by the fact that the methods for calculating interest were settled by the national authority responsible for the infringement of Community law which gave rise to the claims for repayment.