larimo/cjeu-paragraph-retrieval huggingface dataset:
Skatteministeriet v Sportgoods A/S.
Date: 1998-09-24
41 Here, it is sufficient to note, first, that the Commission, as it points out, did not express a view in its decision of 18 July 1994 as to the existence or otherwise of a legal basis for effecting post-clearance recovery of the customs duties concerned under the regulation in issue. The decision does not contain any legal or factual indication in this regard such as to bind all the authorities, including the courts, of the State to which it was addressed.
43 The answer to the third question must therefore be that, when the Commission, after consultation with the Customs Code Committee, has delivered a decision addressed to a Member State holding that there was, in a specific case, no justification for granting remission of import duties pursuant to the provisions of Regulation No 1430/79, and when that decision does not contain any legal or factual indication relating to the legal basis for effecting post-clearance recovery of the import duties concerned under the regulation in issue, a national court may rule on the latter question, having recourse, if appropriate, to the procedure under Article 177 of the Treaty.
EvoBus Austria GmbH v Niederösterreichische Verkehrsorganisations GmbH (Növog).
Date: 1998-09-24
15 It must first be pointed out that in its judgment in Dorsch Consult (Case C-54/96 [1997] ECR I-4961, paragraph 40), the Court observed that it is for the legal system of each Member State to determine which court or tribunal has jurisdiction to hear disputes involving individual rights derived from Community law.  However, it is the Member States' responsibility to ensure that those rights are effectively protected in each case.  Subject to that reservation, it is not for the Court to involve itself in the resolution of questions of jurisdiction to which the classification of certain legal situations based on Community law may give rise in the national judicial system.
18 In regard to such circumstances, the Court pointed out at paragraph 43 of the Dorsch Consult judgment, cited above, that Member States' obligation arising from a directive to achieve the result envisaged by the directive and their duty under Article 5 of the EC Treaty to take all appropriate measures, whether general or particular, to ensure fulfilment of that obligation, is binding on all the authorities of Member States, including, for matters within their jurisdiction, the courts.  It follows that, when applying national law, whether adopted before or after the directive, the national court called upon to interpret that law must do so, as far as possible, in the light of the wording and the purpose of the directive so as to achieve the result which it has in view and thereby comply with the third paragraph of Article 189 of the EC Treaty (see Case C-106/89 Marleasing [1990] ECR I-4135, paragraph 8;  Case C-334/92 Wagner Miret [1993] ECR I-6911, paragraph 20; and Case C-91/92 Faccini Dori [1994] ECR I-3325, paragraph 26).
19 That obligation requires the national court to determine whether the relevant provisions of domestic law allow recognition of a right for individuals to review in relation to awards of public service contracts in the water, energy, transport and telecommunications sectors. In circumstances such as those in point in the main proceedings, the national court is required in particular to determine whether that right to review may be exercised before the same bodies as those established to hear applications for review concerning the award of public supply contracts and public works contracts (see the judgment in Dorsch Consult, cited above, end of paragraph 46).
21 In those circumstances it must be pointed out that, if the relevant provisions of domestic law cannot be interpreted in conformity with Directive 92/13, the persons concerned may, in accordance with the appropriate procedures under domestic law, claim compensation for the damage incurred owing to the failure to transpose the directive within the time prescribed (Dorsch Consult, cited above, paragraph 45; on the question of Member States' liability in the event of non-transposition of a directive see, in particular, Joined Cases C-6/90 and C-9/90 Francovich and Others [1991] ECR I-5357 and Joined Cases C-178/94, C-179/94, C-188/94, C-189/94 and C-190/94 Dillenkofer and Others [1996] ECR I-4845).
Kingdom of the Netherlands v Commission of the European Communities.
Date: 1998-10-01
22 On this point, it must first of all be borne in mind that, according to the principles governing the procedure for clearing EAGGF accounts as laid down in the case-law of the Court, only refunds granted `in accordance with the Community rules' within the framework of the common organisation of agricultural markets are financed by the EAGGF (Case 347/85 United Kingdom v Commission [1988] ECR 1749, paragraph 11).
25 The overall effect of those provisions is that an export declaration must be made in writing, inter alia, in order for it to be possible to check whether the information given by the exporter corresponds to the goods presented for export, and that it must be submitted before the goods have left customs territory.
26 Secondly, when the Commission refuses to charge certain expenditure to the EAGGF on the ground that it was incurred as a result of breaches of Community rules attributable to a Member State, it is for that State to show that the conditions for obtaining the financing disallowed are fulfilled (see, in particular, United Kingdom v Commission, cited above, paragraph 14).
27 That rule is equally applicable in a case such as this where the Commission considers, on the basis of inspections carried out by its staff, that the Member State in question did not carry out the necessary inspections before the goods left customs territory (see also, on this point, Case C-198/94 Italy v Commission [1996] ECR I-2797, paragraph 36).
28 Furthermore, Article 8(1) of Regulation No 729/70 imposes on Member States the general obligation to take the measures necessary to satisfy themselves that the transactions financed by the EAGGF are actually carried out and are executed correctly, to prevent and deal with irregularities and to recover sums lost as a result of irregularities or negligence (Case C-8/88 Germany v Commission [1990] ECR I-2321, paragraph 17).
29 In this case, the Netherlands authorities were not able to show, at least before the expiry of the period prescribed in its decision of 6 November 1992, that the Commission was wrong in its findings.
35 In that connection, the Court has consistently held that the extent of the duty to state the reasons on which a decision is based, laid down in Article 190, depends on the nature of the act in question and on the context in which it was adopted (Case C-54/95 Germany v Commission [1993] ECR I-3399, paragraph 10).
36 In the particular context of the preparation of decisions relating to the clearance of accounts, the statement of reasons for a decision must be regarded as sufficient if the Member State to which the decision was addressed was closely involved in the process by which the decision came about and was aware of the reasons for which the Commission took the view that it must not charge the sum in dispute to the EAGGF (see Case C-22/89 Netherlands v Commission [1990] ECR I-4799, paragraph 18).
Commission of the European Communities v Italian Republic.
Date: 1998-10-01
15 It must be observed that the objective of the programmes referred to in Article 7(1) of the Directive is to reduce water pollution.  The term `pollution' is defined in Article 1(2)(e) of the Directive as `the discharge by man, directly or indirectly, of substances or energy into the aquatic environment, the results of which are such as to cause hazards to human health, harm to living resources and to aquatic eco-systems, damage to amenities or interference with other legitimate uses of water'.  The obligation to establish programmes under Article 7(1) therefore extends to cover water affected by such waste (Case C-206/96 Commission v Luxembourg [1998] ECR I-3401, paragraph 20).
Commission of the European Communities v Kingdom of Spain.
Date: 1998-10-01
14 As regards the absence of any intention on the part of the Kingdom of Spain not to fulfil its obligations under Articles 3 and 4 of the Directive, it must be pointed out that the procedure laid down in Article 169 of the Treaty is based on the objective finding that a Member State has failed to fulfil its obligations under the Treaty or secondary legislation (see, to that effect, Case 301/81 Commission v Belgium [1983] ECR 467, paragraph 8).
15 When such a finding has been made, as in the present case, it is irrelevant whether the failure to fulfil obligations is the result of intention or negligence on the part of the Member State responsible, or of technical difficulties encountered by it.
16 In that respect, the Court has held that, if the period allowed for the implementation of a directive proves to be too short, the only means of action compatible with Community law available to the Member State concerned consists in taking the appropriate initiatives within the Community in order to obtain the necessary extension of the period by the competent-Community institution (Commission v Belgium, paragraph 11).
17 As regards, in particular, the argument based on the fact that the delay at issue resulted, inter alia, from the fact that the State and the autonomous communities have concurrent powers, it must be pointed out that, according to settled case-law, a State may not plead provisions and practices or circumstances existing in its internal legal system in order to justify a failure to comply with the obligations and time-limits laid down in a directive (Case C-259/94 Commission v Greece [1995] ECR I-1947, paragraph 5).
18 As to the Kingdom of Spain's assertion that the Court should not rule on the charges of failure to fulfil the obligation to draw up codes of good agricultural practice and to designate vulnerable zones in so far as those charges concern the autonomous communities mentioned for the first time in its rejoinder, it must be pointed out that, according to settled case-law, the Court cannot take account of measures adopted by a Member State after the commencement of an action for failure to fulfil its obligations in order to comply with those obligations (Case 291/84 Commission v Netherlands [1987] ECR 3483, paragraph 15).
Commission of the European Communities v Kingdom of Belgium.
Date: 1998-10-15
14 As regards Article 22 of the Directive, it must be pointed out that it concerns the recognition by the Member States of the validity of data generated by experiments carried out in the territory of another Member State for one of the purposes listed in Article 3 of the Directive, that is to say, the development, manufacture, quality, effectiveness and safety testing not only of drugs but also of foodstuffs and other substances or products and the protection of the environment. As the Decrees of 22 and 25 September 1992 only concern tests on medicines for human or veterinary use and Article 6a of the Royal Decree of 3 July 1969, inserted by Royal Decree of 1 February 1996, only concerns the medicines registered, those provisions do not constitute a full transposition of Article 22 of the Directive.
Commission of the European Communities v Kingdom of Belgium.
Date: 1998-10-15
7 In that connection, it must be pointed out that, according to settled case-law, a Member State may not plead provisions, practices or circumstances existing in its internal legal system in order to justify a failure to comply with the obligations and time-limits laid down in a directive (see, in particular, Case C-298/97 Commission v Spain [1998] ECR I-3301, paragraph 14).
Commission of the European Communities v French Republic.
Date: 1998-10-22
16 In any event, according to settled case-law (Case 8/74 Dassonville [1974] ECR 837, paragraph 5), the prohibition laid down in Article 30 of the Treaty covers all trading rules enacted by Member States which are capable of hindering directly or indirectly, actually or potentially, intra-Community trade.
17 Article 30 applies therefore not only to the actual effects but also to the potential effects of legislation. It cannot be considered inapplicable simply because at the present time there are no actual cases with a connection to another Member State (see, to this effect, Joined Cases C-321/94 to C-324/94 Pistre and Others [1997] ECR I-2343, paragraph 44).
23 So far as concerns the argument based on the necessity to prevent offences with respect to false descriptions, the Court, in its judgment in Deserbais, did not exclude the possibility that Member States could require those concerned to alter the denomination of a foodstuff where a product presented under a particular denomination is so different, as regards its composition or production, from the products generally known under that denomination in the Community that it cannot be regarded as falling within the same category (Case 286/86 Ministère Public v Deserbais [1988] ECR 4907).
24 None the less, the mere fact that a product does not wholly conform to the requirements laid down in national legislation on the composition of certain foodstuffs with a particular denomination does not mean that its marketing can be prohibited.
Raija-Liisa Jokela and Laura Pitkäranta.
Date: 1998-10-22
18 In order to determine whether a body is a court or tribunal for the purposes of that provision, which is a question governed by Community law alone, the Court takes account of a number of factors, such as whether the body is established by law, whether it is permanent, whether its jurisdiction is compulsory, whether procedure before it is inter partes, whether it applies rules of law, and whether it is independent (Case 61/65 Vaassen (née Göbbels) [1966] ECR 261; Case C-54/96 Dorsch Consult v Bundesbaugesellschaft Berlin [1997] ECR I-4961, paragraph 23, and Joined Cases C-69/96 to C-79/96 Garofalo and Others v Ministero della Sanità [1997] ECR I-5603, paragraph 19).
20 It appears, furthermore, from the documents before the Court, that it is composed of three members, two of whom are full-time appointees.  They are appointed by public authority for a five-year term and enjoy the same guarantees as judges against removal from office.
30 As a preliminary point, it must be borne in mind that under Article 177 of the Treaty the Court has no power to apply a rule of Community law to a particular case, but only to rule on the interpretation of the Treaty and of acts adopted by Community institutions (see, in particular, Case 100/63 Kalsbeek v Sociale Verzekeringsbank [1964] ECR 565, at p. 572, and Case 137/84 Mutsch [1985] ECR 2681, paragraph 6).
36 Before addressing that question, it must be noted that Article 18(3) of Regulation No 2328/91 expressly authorises the Member States to lay down additional or limiting conditions for the grant of the compensatory allowance.
37 That discretion must therefore be borne in mind in assessing whether Paragraph 6 of Decision No 861/1995 of the Finnish Council of State is compatible with Community law.  The first subparagraph of that provision requires, as a general rule, that a farmer claiming the compensatory allowance must reside on or within 12 kilometres of the farm.  By way of derogation from that general rule, the third subparagraph allows the compensatory allowance to be granted even to a person who does not satisfy the residence requirement, where that person satisfies additional requirements guaranteeing the existence of at least some connection with the farm.
The general residence requirement
45 That principle precludes comparable situations from being treated differently, unless such treatment is objectively justified (Case C-63/93 Duff and Others v Minister for Agriculture and Food, Ireland, and the Attorney General [1996] ECR I-569, paragraph 26).
48 That principle requires that legal rules be clear and precise, and aims to ensure that situations and legal relationships governed by Community law remain foreseeable (Duff, cited above, paragraph 20).
Office National des pensions (ONP) v Francesco Conti.
Date: 1998-10-22
19 First of all, the meaning of the expression `a provision for reduction of benefit', used in Article 12(2) of Regulation No 1408/71 as amended by Regulation No 2001/83, was not changed by Regulation No 1248/92.  The amendments made to Article 12(2) by Regulation No 1248/92 were concerned with delimiting the application of national rules against overlapping benefits and did not affect the principle of their operation (see, to that effect, Case C-366/96 Cordelle [1998] ECR I-583, paragraph 12). Consequently, in order to reply to the question referred, there is no need to distinguish between the period before 1 June 1992 and the period thereafter.
24 The Court considers it important to stress that national provisions for reduction of benefits cannot be rendered exempt from the conditions and limits of application laid down in Regulation No 1408/71 by categorising them as rules for calculating the amount payable.
25 A national rule must be regarded as a provision for reduction of benefit if the calculation which it requires to be made has the effect of reducing the amount of pension which the person concerned may claim because he receives a benefit from another Member State.
30 The reply to the question referred by the national court must therefore be that a national rule which provides that the supplement to a mineworker's retirement pension is to be reduced by the amount of a retirement pension which the person concerned may claim under a scheme of another Member State constitutes a provision for reduction of benefit within the meaning of Article 12(2) of Regulation No 1408/71, as amended by Regulation No 2001/83, and within the meaning of Articles 12(2), 46(3) and 46b of that version of Regulation No 1408/71, as amended by Regulation No 1248/92.
Manifattura italiana Nonwoven SpA v Direzione regionale delle entrate per la Toscana.
Date: 1998-10-27
3 The Directive is aimed in particular at achieving harmonisation of the factors involved in the fixing and levying of capital duty in the Community, by means of the elimination of tax obstacles which interfere with the free movement of capital (see, inter alia, Case C-347/96 Solred v Administración General del Estado [1998] ECR I-937, paragraph 3).
19 Since the national court states that the tax on companies' net assets is unanimously classified as a direct tax, it must be observed first of all that, according to settled case-law, the nature of a tax, duty or charge must be determined by the Court, under Community law, according to the objective characteristics by which it is levied, irrespective of its classification under national law (Joined Cases C-197/94 and C-252/94 Bautiaa and Société Française Maritime [1996] ECR I-505, paragraph 39, and the case-law there cited).
20 As far as the objective characteristics of the tax at issue are concerned, as the Advocate General states in paragraph 14 of his Opinion, the various transactions which, in accordance with Article 4(1) of the Directive, must be subjected to capital duty are all transactions involving the transfer of capital or assets to a capital company in the taxing Member State.  Similarly, the categories of transaction which, under Article 4(2), may be subject to capital duty all result in an effective increase in the company's capital or assets.
Fuerzas Eléctricas de Catalunya SA (FECSA) (C-31/97) and Autopistas Concesionaria Española SA (C-32/97) v Departament d'Economía y Finances de la Generalitat de Catalunya.
Date: 1998-10-27
18 It is thus true that Article 11(b) of the Directive does not expressly mention the repayment of debenture loans; nevertheless, prohibiting the levying of duty when debenture loans are issued but authorising it when such loans are repaid would have the effect, contrary to the objective pursued by the Directive, of taxing loans as overall operations for raising capital.
19 It follows that Article 11(b) of the Directive must be interpreted as meaning that the prohibition of taxation on debenture loans extends to taxation on the repayment of such loans.
Abruzzi Gas SpA (Agas) v Amministrazione Tributaria di Milano.
Date: 1998-10-27
19 It is apparent from Article 1 of the Directive, read in conjunction with Article 4 thereof, that the duty levied on contributions to capital companies constitutes a `capital duty' within the meaning of the Directive where it applies to transactions covered by the Directive (Joined Cases C-197/94 and C-252/94 Bautiaa and Société Française Maritime [1996] ECR I-505, paragraph 31).
20 The transactions which are or may be rendered subject to the harmonised capital duty by the Member States are defined in Article 4 of the Directive objectively and with uniform application to all Member States, without reference to any specific aspects of their individual domestic legislation or to the way in which national tax systems are organised (Bautiaa and Société Française Maritime, paragraph 32).
21 Consequently, if the transaction in question is to fall within the scope of the Directive, it must be possible to bring it within one of the cases described in Article 4 thereof to which Article 10(a) and (b) of the Directive refer.  That is in turn subject to the prohibition laid down in Article 10(c) of the Directive on taxation in respect of registration or any other formality required before the commencement of business, to which a company may be subject by reason of its legal form.  That prohibition is justified by the fact that, even though the taxes in question are not levied on capital contributions as such, they are nevertheless levied on account of formalities connected with the company's legal form, in other words on account of the instrument employed for raising capital, so that their continued existence would similarly risk frustrating the aims of the Directive (Case C-2/94 Denkavit Internationaal and Others [1996] ECR I-2827, paragraph 23).
27 Secondly, as regards the applicability of Article 10(c) of the Directive, in a case such as that in point in the main proceedings, the registration duty does not appear to have been paid on the registration of a new capital company, that is to say, on completion of a formality required for the commencement of business.  Furthermore, it was not levied on the registration of an increase in capital, necessary for the carrying on of that business (see, on that point, Case C-188/95 Fantask and Others [1997] ECR I-6783, paragraph 22).
29 It must be concluded that, although one of the aims pursued by the Directive is to prevent transfers of assets between companies from being impeded by tax obstacles in order to facilitate the reorganisation of undertakings (see to that effect Case C-50/91 Commerz-Credit-Bank [1992] ECR I-5225, paragraph 11), it does not apply to registration duty levied in respect of the acquisition of companies by a company which already holds all their share capital.
Commission of the European Communities v Ireland.
Date: 1998-10-27
8 It is settled law that the question whether a Member State has failed to fulfil its obligations must be determined by reference to the situation in the Member State as it stood at the end of the period laid down in the reasoned opinion, and that the Court cannot take account of any subsequent changes (see, inter alia, Case C-361/95 Commission v Spain [1997] ECR I-7351, paragraph 13).