Keywords
Summary

Keywords

1 Preliminary rulings - Interpretation - Temporal effects of interpretative rulings - Retroactive effect - Scope - Application of a time-limit under national law to a claim for reimbursement of national charges incompatible with Community law

(EC Treaty, Art. 177)

2 Community law - Direct effect - National charges incompatible with Community law - Repayment - Procedures - Application of national law - Time-limits - Whether permissible - Conditions - Observance of the principle of effectiveness of Community law - Observance of the principle of equivalence of conditions for actions for recovery with those for similar claims under domestic law

3 Acts of the institutions - Directives - Direct effect - Consequences - Possibility of enforcing against individuals national rules concerning time-limits for instituting proceedings before proper transposition of a directive - Whether permissible - Conditions

Summary

1 The interpretation which, in the exercise of the jurisdiction conferred upon it by Article 177 of the Treaty, the Court gives to a rule of Community law clarifies and defines where necessary the meaning and scope of that rule as it must be or ought to have been understood and applied from the time of its coming into force. It follows that the rule thus interpreted may, and must, be applied by the courts even to legal relationships arising and established before the judgment ruling on the request for interpretation, provided that in other respects the conditions enabling an action relating to the application of that rule to be brought before the courts having jurisdiction are satisfied. Having regard to those principles, it is only exceptionally that the Court may limit the effects of a judgment ruling on a request for interpretation.

The application of detailed procedural rules governing legal proceedings under national law, as regards matters both of form and of substance, must not be confused with a limitation on the effects of a judgment of the Court ruling on a request for interpretation of a provision of Community law. The consequence of such a limitation is to deprive litigants, who would normally be in a position, under their national procedural rules, to exercise the rights conferred on them by the Community provision concerned, of the right to rely on it in support of their claims.

Accordingly, the fact that the Court has given a preliminary ruling interpreting a provision of Community law without limiting the temporal effects of its judgment does not affect the right of a Member State to impose a time-limit under national law within which, on penalty of being barred, proceedings for repayment of charges levied in breach of that provision must be commenced.

2 In the absence of Community rules on reimbursement of national charges levied though not due, 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, first, that such rules are not less favourable than those governing similar domestic actions (principle of equivalence) and, second, that they do not render virtually impossible or excessively difficult the exercise of rights conferred by Community law (principle of effectiveness).

As regards the principle of effectiveness, it is compatible with Community law to lay down reasonable time-limits for bringing proceedings in the interests of legal certainty which protects both the taxpayer and the administration concerned. Such time-limits are not liable to render virtually impossible or excessively difficult the exercise of rights conferred by Community law. In that regard, a time-limit of three years under national law, reckoned from the date of the contested payment, appears reasonable.

Observance of the principle of equivalence implies, for its part, that the procedural rule at issue applies 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. Thus, Community law does not preclude the legislation of a Member State from laying down, alongside a limitation period applicable under the ordinary law to actions between private individuals for the recovery of sums paid but not due, special detailed rules, which are less favourable, governing claims and legal proceedings to challenge the imposition of charges and other levies. The position would be different only if those detailed rules applied solely to actions based on Community law for the repayment of such charges or levies.

It follows that Community law does not prohibit a Member State from resisting actions for repayment of charges levied in breach of Community law by relying on a time-limit under national law of three years, by way of derogation from the ordinary rules governing actions between private individuals for the recovery of sums paid but not due, for which the period allowed is more favourable, provided that that time-limit applies in the same way to actions based on Community law for repayment of such charges as to those based on national law.

3 Community law does not prevent a Member State from resisting actions for repayment of charges levied in breach of a directive by relying on a time-limit under national law which is reckoned from the date of payment of the charges in question, even if, at that date, the directive concerned had not yet been properly transposed into national law, provided, first, that that time-limit is not less favourable for actions based on Community law than for those based on domestic law and that it does not render virtually impossible or excessively difficult the exercise of rights conferred by Community law and, second, provided that it is not established that the conduct of the national authorities, in conjunction with the existence of the contested time-limit, had the effect of depriving the plaintiff of any opportunity of enforcing his rights before the national courts.