European Commission v United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Date: 2015-06-04
21. It is settled case-law that the wording used in one language version of a provision of EU law cannot serve as the sole basis for the interpretation of that provision, or be made to override the other language versions in that regard. Such an approach would be incompatible with the requirement of the uniform application of EU law. Where there is divergence between the various language versions, the provision in question must be interpreted by reference to the purpose and general scheme of the rules of which it forms part (see, inter alia, the judgment in Commission  v Netherlands , C‑41/09, EU:C:2011:108, paragraph 44).
22. As regards the general scheme of the rules relating to VAT, it should be noted that Article 96 of the VAT Directive provides that the same rate of VAT, namely, the standard rate, is applicable to supplies of goods and services. As an exception to that principle, Article 98(1) of the VAT Directive gives the Member States the option of applying either one or two reduced rates of VAT. In accordance with the first subparagraph of Article 98(2), the reduced rates of VAT can apply only to supplies of goods and services in the categories set out in Annex III to the VAT Directive (the judgments in K , C‑219/13, EU:C:2014:2207, paragraphs 21 and 22, and Commission  v France , C‑479/13, EU:C:2015:141, paragraph 25).
25. As regards the purpose of those provisions, it must be recalled that, in establishing Annex III to the VAT Directive, the EU legislature intended that essential commodities and goods and services having social or cultural objectives may be subject to a reduced rate of VAT, provided that those goods or services pose little or no risk of distortion to competition (see, to that effect, the judgment in Commission  v Netherlands , C‑41/09, EU:C:2011:108, paragraph 52).
26. It is true that the VAT Directive does not define either which services correspond to social objectives or, again, which services are supplied as part of social policy. It follows that the definition of such objectives or that social policy context is a matter of political choices for the Member States and may not be subject to scrutiny by the European Union except where, by a distortion of those concepts, it results in measures which fall, by virtue of their effect and true objectives, outside those objectives or that context (see judgments in Commission  v United Kingdom , 416/85, EU:C:1988:321, paragraph 14, and Commission  v Ireland , C‑108/11, EU:C:2013:161, paragraph 37).
27. The Court has previously ruled that it follows from the wording of Article 110 of the VAT Directive that the Member States may invoke social reasons provided that they are ‘well defined’ and that the concept of social interest is not distorted, that is to say used for purposes other than social reasons (see judgment in Commission  v Ireland , C‑108/11, EU:C:2013:161, paragraph 38). There is no reason to consider that the Court should depart from such a finding as regards the application of the combined provisions of Article 98 of the VAT Directive and Category 10 of Annex III thereto.
28. It is common ground that the social objectives which may justify the adoption of the reduced rate of VAT with respect to operations relating to housing are not expressly stated in the United Kingdom legislation. No inferences can therefore be made from that legislation to enable the Court to determine that the reduced rate in question was adopted for reasons of exclusively social interest or, at least, for reasons of principally social interest (see, to that effect, the judgment in Commission  v Ireland , C‑108/11, EU:C:2013:161, paragraph 42).