Keywords
Summary

Keywords

1. Freedom to provide services - Treaty provisions - Scope - Leasing - Included

(Art. 50 EC)

2. Freedom to provide services - Restrictions - Obligation to register in the Member State of use vehicles leased from an undertaking established in another Member State - Justification - Powers of taxation of Member States in the taxation of motor vehicles - Conditions linked to the time-limit for registration, residence or establishment of the leasing undertaking, insurance, roadworthiness testing and the payment of a consumption tax - Not permissible - Criteria

(Arts 49 EC to 55 EC)

Summary

1. Leasing constitutes a service within the meaning of Article 50 EC. It consists of an economic activity provided for consideration. The fact that that activity implies the handing over of goods by the lessor to the lessee cannot invalidate that classification since the supply relates not so much to the goods themselves as to their use by the lessee, the goods in question remaining the property of the lessor.

( see para. 18 )

2. Where a vehicle leased from a company established in one Member State is actually used on the road network of another Member State, the latter may impose an obligation for that vehicle to be registered in its territory, since registration is the natural corollary of the exercise of the powers of taxation which, subject to compliance with Community Law, Member States are free to exercise in the taxation of motor vehicles. The provisions of the Treaty on the freedom to provide services (Articles 49 EC to 55 EC) do, however, preclude legislation of a Member State which in such a case makes registration subject to one or more of the following conditions:

- a time-limit for registration that is so short as to make it impossible or excessively difficult to comply with the obligations imposed, having regard to the formalities which must be completed;

- a requirement that the person in whose name the vehicle is registered in the Member State of use reside or have a place of business there, in so far as it obliges a leasing undertaking either to have a principal place of business in that Member State or to accept registration of the vehicle in the name of the lessee and the consequent limitation of its rights over the vehicle;

- a requirement to insure the vehicle with an authorised insurer in the Member State of use, if that requirement implies that the insurer must have its principal place of business in that Member State, as the home State within the meaning of the non-life insurance directives, and have official authorisation there;

- a requirement of a roadworthiness test when the vehicle has already undergone such testing in the Member State where the leasing company is established, save where that requirement is aimed at verifying that the vehicle satisfies the conditions imposed on vehicles registered in the Member State of use that are not covered by the tests carried out in the Member State where the leasing company is established and/or, if the vehicle has in the meantime been used on the public highway, that its condition has not deteriorated since it was tested in that latter Member State, provided similar testing is imposed where a vehicle previously tested in the Member State of use is presented for registration in that State;

- payment, in the Member State of use, of a consumption tax the amount of which is not proportionate to the duration of the registration of the vehicle in that State.

( see paras 40-42, 46, 71, operative part )