larimo/cjeu-paragraph-retrieval huggingface dataset:
Syndicat des producteurs indépendants (SPI) v Ministère de l'Economie, des Finances et de l'Industrie.
Date: 2001-03-15
15 In this regard, it should be borne in mind that, as regards the relationship between Article 9(1) and Article 9(2) of the Sixth Directive, the Court has already pointed out that Article 9(2) sets out a number of specific instances of places where certain services are deemed to be supplied, whereas Article 9(1) lays down the general rule on the matter. The object of those provisions is to avoid, first, conflicts of jurisdiction, which may result in double taxation, and, second, non-taxation (Case 168/84 Berkholz v Finanzamt Hamburg-Mitte-Altstadt [1985] ECR 2251, paragraph 14, and Case C-327/94 Dudda v Finanzamt Bergisch Gladbach [1996] ECR I-4595, paragraph 20).
16 The Court has concluded from this that, for the purposes of interpreting Article 9 of the Sixth Directive, Article 9(1) in no way takes precedence over Article 9(2). In every situation, the question which arises is whether it is covered by one of the instances mentioned in Article 9(2); if not, it falls within the scope of Article 9(1) (Dudda, cited above, paragraph 21).
17 The French Government's argument that the second indent of Article 9(2)(e) of the Sixth Directive should, as an exception to a rule, be narrowly construed must therefore be rejected.
18 As is also clear from paragraphs 22 and 23 of the judgment in Dudda, the scope of Article 9(2) of the Sixth Directive must be determined in the light of its purpose as set out in the seventh recital in its preamble, which is to establish a special regime applying to services supplied between taxable persons where the cost of the services is included in the price of the goods.
20 That interpretation is borne out by the fact that the Court has also held, albeit in a somewhat different context, first, that, in order to determine whether a given operation constitutes a supply of advertising services within the meaning of the second indent of Article 9(2)(e) of the Sixth Directive, it is necessary in each case to take account of all the circumstances surrounding the service in question and, second, that an operation may be characterised as a supply of advertising services even where it is not carried out by a supplier engaged in business as an advertising agency (Case C-68/92 Commission v France [1993] ECR I-5881, paragraph 17, and Case C-69/92 Commission v Luxembourg [1993] ECR I-5907, paragraph 18).
22 The answer to the question referred by the national court must therefore be that the second indent of Article 9(2)(e) of the Sixth Directive must be interpreted as applying not only to advertising services supplied directly and invoiced by the supplier to a taxable advertiser but also to services supplied indirectly to the advertiser and invoiced to a third party who in turn invoices them to the advertiser.
Commission of the European Communities v French Republic.
Date: 2001-03-15
9 Article 13 of the directive, as amended by Council Directive 91/692/EEC of 23 December 1991 standardising and rationalising reports on the implementation of certain directives relating to the environment (OJ 1991 L 377, p. 48), provides that every year, and for the first time by 31 December 1993, the Member States are to send to the Commission a report on the implementation of the directive in the current year. That report is to be made to the Commission before the end of the year in question. The Commission is to publish a Community report on the implementation of the directive (the consolidated report) within four months of receiving the reports from the Member States.
26 It must be borne in mind that, according to settled case-law, the question whether a Member State has failed to fulfil its obligations must be determined by reference to the situation prevailing in the Member State at the end of the period laid down in the reasoned opinion and that the Court cannot take account of any subsequent changes (see, in particular, Case C-384/99 Commission v Belgium [2000] ECR I-10633, paragraph 16).
27 It is also settled case-law, as the French Government points out, that in the context of proceedings under Article 226 EC for failure to fulfil obligations it is for the Commission to prove the existence of the alleged failure, and it may not rely on any presumption for that purpose (see, inter alia, Case C-214/98 Commission v Greece [2000] ECR I-9601, paragraph 42).
French Republic v Commission of the European Communities.
Date: 2001-03-22
35 In that connection, it must be borne in mind that the obligation to state reasons is an essential procedural requirement, as distinct from the question whether the reasons given are correct, which goes to the substantive legality of the contested measure. The statement of reasons required by Article 190 of the Treaty must be appropriate to the act at issue and must disclose in a clear and unequivocal fashion the reasoning followed by the institution which adopted the measure in question in such a way as to enable the persons concerned to ascertain the reasons for the measure and to enable the competent court to exercise its power of review (Commission v Sytraval and Brink's France, cited above, paragraphs 67 and 63).
36 As the Commission has rightly pointed out, that requirement must be appraised by reference to the circumstances of each case, in particular the content of the measure in question, the nature of the reasons given and the interest which the addressees of the measure, or other parties to whom it is of direct and individual concern, may have in obtaining explanations. It is not necessary for the reasoning to go into all the relevant facts and points of law, since the question whether the statement of reasons meets the requirements of Article 190 of the Treaty must be assessed with regard not only to its wording but also to its context and to all the legal rules governing the matter in question (see, in particular, Commission v Sytraval and Brink's France, cited above, paragraph 63).
45 As is clear from the Guidelines, in order to be declared compatible with Article 92(3)(c) of the Treaty, aid to undertakings in difficulty must be bound to a restructuring programme designed to reduce or redirect their activities (see Commission v Spain, cited above, paragraph 67). Any such plan, which must be submitted to the Commission with all necessary clarifications, must, in the terms of point 3.2.2(i) of the Guidelines, make it possible to restore the long-term viability and health of the firm within a reasonable time scale and on the basis of realistic assumptions as to its future operating conditions whilst at the same time offset[ting] as far as possible adverse effects on competitors (point 3.2.2(ii)) and ensuring that the aid is in proportion to restructuring costs and benefits (point 3.2.2(iii)). It is incumbent on the undertaking concerned to implement the restructuring plan, as accepted by the Commission, fully (point 3.2.2(iv)) and the implementation and satisfactory progress of the plan must be monitored by the Commission, to which detailed annual reports must be submitted (point 3.2.2(v)).
50 Consequently, the third plea must be rejected, it being unnecessary to examine the other charges made by the French Government in support of it.
Betriebsrat der bofrost* Josef H. Boquoi Deutschland West GmbH & Co. KG v Bofrost* Josef H. Boquoi Deutschland West GmbH & Co. KG.
Date: 2001-03-29
29 As is clear from its general scheme, transnational informing and consulting of employees are essentially to be ensured by means of a system of negotiations between the central management, within the meaning of Article 2(1)(e) of the Directive, and the workers' representatives.
31 The wording of that same provision makes it clear that the scope of those obligations is not to be confined, on the employers' side, exclusively to central management within the meaning of Article 2(1)(e) of the Directive.
32 Finally, as the Works Council, the Austrian and German Governments and the Commission have correctly pointed out, if the Directive is to serve a useful purpose, it is essential that the workers concerned be guaranteed access to information enabling them to determine whether they have the right to demand the opening of negotiations with central management, once its existence is established, and the workers' representatives.
33 Such a right to information constitutes a necessary prerequisite for determining whether a Community-scale undertaking or group of undertakings exists, which is itself a condition precedent for the setting-up of a European works council or of a transnational procedure for informing and consulting workers.
35 That interpretation is corroborated by the wording of Article 11(2) of the Directive, which refers generally to parties concerned by the application of this Directive, without confining itself to central management, within the meaning of Article 2(1)(e) of the Directive, or workers' representatives.
38 As pointed out in paragraph 32 above, it is implicit in the Directive's purpose that the obligations which it lays down are to be fulfilled in such a way as to enable the workers concerned, or their representatives, to have access to the information which is necessary if they are to be able to determine whether or not they are entitled to request the opening of negotiations and, where relevant, to make that request in due form.
39 It follows that, where information relating to the structure or organisation of a group of undertakings forms part of the information which is essential to the opening of negotiations for the setting-up of a European Works Council or for the transnational information and consultation of employees, an undertaking within the group is required to supply the information which it possesses or is able to obtain to the internal workers' representative bodies requesting it.
Commission of the European Communities v French Republic.
Date: 2001-03-29
38 It must be recalled, first of all, that, according to settled case-law, the consideration received or receivable by the supplier for the provision of a service, which constitutes, under Article 11A(1)(a) of the Sixth Directive, the taxable amount arising from that operation, must be capable of being expressed in terms of the consideration actually received for it, which is a subjective value and not a value estimated according to objective criteria (see Case C-258/95 Fillibeck [1997] ECR I-5577, paragraph 13, and the case-law cited therein). According to the same case-law, that consideration must be capable of being expressed in money (see Fillibeck, cited above, paragraph 14, and the case-law cited therein).
45 Furthermore, whilst the foregoing is sufficient for the present action to succeed, it should be recalled that, according to settled case-law, the principle of fiscal neutrality, to which the Commission has also referred, precludes, inter alia, economic operators carrying on the same activities from being treated differently as far as the levying of VAT is concerned (Gregg, cited above, paragraph 20).
46 It follows that such a principle is infringed where, pursuant to the 1976 instruction, operators offering the same service, for the same total price, may find themselves having to pay different sums in respect of VAT depending on whether or not they indicate on their bills that they are applying a service charge, because the taxable amount differs in each case even though the service provided and the consideration given for it are absolutely identical.
47 Consequently, the administrative concession confirmed by the 1976 instruction violates the principle of fiscal neutrality and gives rise to a distortion of competition.
51 It is settled case-law that an action against a Member State for failure to fulfil its obligations is objective in nature (Case 415/85 Commission v Ireland [1988] ECR 3097, paragraph 9, and Case C-209/89 Commission v Italy [1991] ECR I-1575, paragraph 6). Consequently, where a Member State fails to fulfil its obligations under the Treaty or under secondary legislation, it does so regardless of the frequency or the scale of the circumstances complained of (see, to that effect, Commission v Italy, cited above, paragraph 19, and Case C-105/91 Commission v Greece [1992] ECR I-5871, paragraph 20).
Deutsche Nichimen GmbH v Hauptzollamt Düsseldorf.
Date: 2001-04-05
19 In order to answer Question 1, it should be recalled that it is settled case-law that, in the interests of legal certainty and for ease of verification, the decisive criterion for the classification of goods for customs purposes is in general to be sought in their objective characteristics and properties as defined in the wording of the relevant heading of the CN (see, in particular, Case C-42/99 Eru Portuguesa [2000] ECR I-7691, paragraph 13).
20 In addition, the intended use of a product may constitute an objective criterion for classification if it is inherent in the product, and that inherent character must be capable of being assessed on the basis of the product's objective characteristics and properties (see, in particular, Case C-309/98 Holz Geenen [2000] ECR I-1975, paragraph 15).
G. van de Water v Staatssecretaris van Financiën.
Date: 2001-04-05
34 As the Netherlands Government and the Commission have pointed out, it is clear, first, from the scheme of the Directive and, second, from its provisions concerning the definition and operation of tax warehouses and suspension arrangements, such as Articles 4(b) and (c), 11(2), 12 and 15(1), that a product subject to excise duty which is held outside a suspension arrangement must at some point and in some way have been released for consumption within the meaning of Article 6(1).
35 Article 6(1) of the Directive in fact provides that the term release for consumption covers not only any manufacture or importation of products subject to excise duty outside a suspension arrangement but also any departure, including irregular departure, from such an arrangement. By placing such a departure on the same footing as a release for consumption within the meaning of Article 6(1), the Community legislature has clearly indicated that any production, processing, holding or circulation outside a suspension arrangement gives rise to the chargeability of the excise duty.
39 As was noted in paragraph 22 of the judgment in Case C-296/95 EMU Tabac and Others [1998] ECR I-1605, the purpose of the Directive is to lay down various rules on the holding, movement and monitoring of products subject to excise duty, in particular so as to ensure that chargeability of excise duties is identical in all the Member States.
41 Lastly, it should be noted that, whilst Article 6 of the Directive does not specify the person liable to pay the duty chargeable, it follows from the scheme of the Directive, and from the ninth recital in its preamble, that the national authorities must in any event ensure that the tax debt is in fact collected.
Commission of the European Communities v Hellenic Republic.
Date: 2001-04-05
10 In that regard, 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-479/98 Commission v Greece [2000] ECR I-4657, paragraph 11).
Criminal proceedings against Christina Bellamy and English Shop Wholesale SA, party liable at civil law.
Date: 2001-04-05
18 In that regard, it should be borne in mind that, in the absence of harmonisation of legislation, obstacles to free movement of goods which are the consequence of applying, to goods coming from other Member States where they are lawfully manufactured and marketed, rules that lay down requirements to be met by such goods (such as those relating to designation, form, size, weight, composition, presentation, labelling, packaging) constitute measures having equivalent effect which are prohibited by Article 28 EC, even if those rules apply without distinction to all products, unless their application can be justified by a public-interest objective taking precedence over the free movement of goods (see, in particular, Cassis de Dijon, Case 120/78 Rewe-Zentral [1979] ECR 649, paragraph 14, and Case C-383/97 Van der Laan [1999] ECR I-731, paragraph 19).
24 In that regard, it must be borne in mind that in order for the Court, where it has been asked for a preliminary ruling, to provide an interpretation of Community law which will be of use to the national court, the order for reference must contain information on the factual context in which the disputed national rule has been or is to be applied (see, to that effect, Joined Cases C-320/90, C-321/90 and C-322/90 Telemarsicabruzzo [1993] ECR I-393, paragraph 6).
Ajinomoto Co., Inc. and The NutraSweet Company v Council of the European Union and Commission of the European Communities.
Date: 2001-05-03
37 The Court has stated in that regard that, according to the wording and scheme of Article 2(3)(a) of the basic regulation, in order to establish the normal value regard must be had primarily to the price actually paid or payable in the ordinary course of trade and that it is apparent from Article 2(3)(b) of the basic regulation that that principle can be derogated from only when there are no sales of the like product in the ordinary course of trade or when such sales do not permit a proper comparison (Case C-105/90 Goldstar v Council [1992] ECR I-677, paragraph 12).
38 In paragraph 13 of the judgment in Goldstar, the Court stated that the ordinary course of trade is a concept which relates to the nature of the sales themselves. It is designed to exclude, for the determination of the normal value, situations in which sales on the domestic market are not made under conditions corresponding to the ordinary course of trade, in particular where a product is sold at a price below production costs or where transactions take place between parties which are associated or have a compensatory arrangement with each other.
39 Lastly, the requirement that sales on the exporter's domestic market must permit a proper comparison is concerned with the question whether those sales are sufficiently representative to serve as a basis for the determination of the normal value. Transactions on the domestic market must reflect normal behaviour on the part of purchasers and result from normal patterns of price formation (Goldstar, paragraph 15).
40 It follows that the two situations provided for in the opening wording of Article 2(3)(b) of the basic regulation, in which the Community institutions are authorised to depart from the method of establishing the normal value on the basis of actual prices, are exhaustive in nature and both relate to the characteristics of the sales effected rather than to the price of the product.
41 In the present case, the appellants do not claim that the patent protection existing in the United States was such as to affect the normal or representative character, within the meaning of the judgment in Goldstar, of the sales of aspartame on the United States market; nor do they complain that the Court of First Instance erred in law in that regard.
Commission of the European Communities v Kingdom of Belgium.
Date: 2001-05-03
28 As is clear from paragraphs 32 to 34 of Kuusijärvi, the purpose of Article 13(2)(f) of Regulation No 1408/71 is precisely to ensure that a person covered by that regulation is always subject to the social security legislation of a Member State.
29 It should be observed, however, that that provision provides for the application of the legislation of the Member State in the territory of which the person concerned is residing only if no other legislation is applicable and, in particular, only if that to which the person concerned had previously been subject ceases to be applicable to him.
31 To that end a simple reference to Article 13(2)(f) of Regulation No 1408/71 is not sufficient, since the fact that the legislation of a Member State ceases to be applicable constitutes a condition for the application of that provision, and that provision does not itself define the conditions in which the legislation of a Member State ceases to be applicable.
Criminal proceedings against Jean Verdonck, Ronald Everaert and Edith de Baedts.
Date: 2001-05-03
28 It must be borne in mind at the outset that, although the Court may not, under Article 177 of the Treaty, rule upon the compatibility of a provision of domestic law with Community law or interpret domestic legislation or regulations, it may nevertheless provide the national court with an interpretation of Community law on all such points as may enable that court to determine the issue of compatibility for the purposes of the case before it (see, for example, Joined Cases 209/84 to 213/84 Asjes and Others [1986] ECR 1425, paragraph 12, and Joined Cases C-304/94, C-330/94, C-342/94 and C-224/95 Tombesi and Others [1997] ECR I-3561, paragraph 36).
Cabletron Systems Ltd v The Revenue Commissioners.
Date: 2001-05-10
17 The Court held, in particular, that network cards are designed solely for automatic information processing machines, that they are directly connected to those machines and that their function is to supply and accept data in a form which those machines can use. From this it inferred that network cards are comparable to any other medium whereby an automatic information processing machine accepts or delivers data in the sense that they have no function which they would be capable of performing without the assistance of such a machine (Peacock, cited above, paragraph 16). The final subparagraph of Note 5(B) to Chapter 84 of the Combined Nomenclature, in the version in force prior to 1 January 1996, could not therefore preclude them from being classified under heading No 8471, given that they do not perform any specific function (Peacock, paragraphs 17 and 18). Further, network cards satisfy the conditions relating to units set out in that note, since they can be connected to the central unit and are specifically designed as parts of an automatic data-processing system (Peacock, paragraph 20).
27 The questions submitted must therefore be answered as follows:
- Regulation No 1638/94 is invalid inasmuch as it classifies the adapters, link adapters and transceivers described in items 1 to 3 of its annex under heading No 8517 of the Combined Nomenclature;
- Regulation No 1165/95 is invalid inasmuch as it classifies the adapter cards described in item 4 of its annex under heading No 8517 of the Combined Nomenclature;
- items of computer network equipment which are connectable to the central processing unit either directly or through one or more other units, which are specifically designed as part of a data-processing system, which are able to accept or deliver data in a form which can be used by the system and which have no function that they would be capable of performing without the assistance of an automatic data-processing machine must be classified under heading No 8471 of the Combined Nomenclature both before and after 1 January 1996.