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3,900 | 31. It should be added that the restrictive approach taken by the national legislature also cannot be justified by the joint statement of the Council and the Commission referred to in paragraph 20 of this judgment. It is settled case-law that, where a statement recorded in Council minutes is not referred to in the wording of a provision of secondary legislation, it cannot be used for the purpose of interpreting that provision (Case C‑292/89 Antonissen [1991] ECR I‑745, paragraph 18; Case C‑375/98 Epson Europe [2000] ECR I‑4243, paragraph 26; and Case C-402/03 Skov and Bilka [2006] ECR I-199, paragraph 42). | 77. It should be borne in mind that, as a rule, justifications based on an increase in financial burdens and possible administrative difficulties cannot justify failure to comply with the obligations arising out of the prohibition of discrimination on grounds of age laid down in Article 2 of Directive 2000/78 (see, by analogy, Erny , C‑172/11, EU:C:2012:399, paragraph 48). | 0 |
3,901 | 34. As for the principle of proportionality, that is one of the general principles of EU law which must be observed by any national legislation which falls within the scope of EU law or which implements that law (see, to that effect, Case 77/81 Zuckerfabrik Franken [1982] ECR 681, paragraph 22; Case 382/87 Buet and EBS [1989] ECR 1235, paragraph 11; Case C‑2/93 Exportslachterijen van Oordegem [1994] ECR I‑2283, paragraph 20; and Joined Cases C‑422/09, C‑425/09 and C‑426/09 Vandorou and Others [2010] ECR I‑12411, paragraph 65). | 16. That latter circumstance, however, is not such as to remove the restrictive nature of the administrative practice in question for the purpose of Article 28 EC. Rather than the absolute or relative number of authorisations granted, it is the very fact that they are required which is decisive. | 0 |
3,902 | 81
Thus, it is following a schematic interpretation of the relevant EU rules that the Court of Justice interpreted those rules as meaning that, as from 2000, the Commission is required to comply with a legal time limit when adopting a decision on financial corrections (see judgments of 4 September 2014, Spain v Commission, C‑192/13 P, EU:C:2014:2156, paragraphs 56 to 82, and of 4 September 2014, Spain v Commission, C‑197/13 P, EU:C:2014:2157, paragraphs 56 to 82). | 62. It follows from Article 18(3) of Regulation No 1386/2002, which refers expressly to Article H(2) of Annex II to Regulation No 1164/94, as amended, that the Commission has, by virtue of Article H(2), a three-month period to take a decision on financial corrections, and that period begins to run from the date of the hearing. | 1 |
3,903 | 36. Ainsi, pareil octroi de CCP multiples portant sur des «produits» distincts permet de rétablir une durée de protection effective suffisante du brevet, et uniforme s’agissant des deux CCP susmentionnés, en permettant à son titulaire de bénéficier d’une période d’exclusivité supplémentaire à l’expiration du brevet de base destinée à compenser, au moins partiellement, le retard pris dans l’exploitation commerciale de son ou de ses inventions en raison du laps de temps qui s’est écoulé entre la date du dépôt de la demande de brevet et celle de l’obtention de la première AMM dans l’Union européenne (voir arrêts du 11 novembre 2010, Hogan Lovells International, C‑229/09, Rec. p. I‑11335, point 50; ainsi que Actavis Group PTC et Actavis UK, précité, point 31). | 35 Consequently, it must be held that, by precluding by regulation or administrative practice on the grounds of their nationality employed or self-employed workers from other Member States and the members of their families from being attributed large-family status for the purpose of the award of special benefits for such families and from being awarded family allowances, the Hellenic Republic has failed to fulfil its obligations under Articles 48 and 52 of the EC Treaty, Article 7 of Regulation No 1612/68, Article 7 of Regulation No 1251/70, Article 7 of Directive 75/34 and Article 3 of Regulation No 1408/71. | 0 |
3,904 | 61. That general power does not allow the European Union, in the light of the principle of conferral enshrined in Article 5(2) TEU, to adopt, in the framework of an association agreement, measures exceeding the limits of the powers that the Member States have conferred on it in the Treaties to attain the objectives set out therein (see, to that effect, judgment in Commission v Council , C‑370/07, EU:C:2009:590, paragraph 46). By contrast, Article 217 TFEU necessarily empowers the European Union to guarantee commitments towards third countries in all the fields covered by the FEU Treaty (see, to that effect, judgment in Demirel , 12/86, EU:C:1987:400, paragraph 9). | 23. As is clear from recital 6 in the preamble to Directive 2004/38, it is incumbent upon the competent authority, when undertaking that examination of the applicant’s personal circumstances, to take account of the various factors that may be relevant in the particular case, such as the extent of economic or physical dependence and the degree of relationship between the family member and the Union citizen whom he wishes to accompany or join. | 0 |
3,905 | 32. As is clear from recitals 16 and 17 in the preamble to that regulation, the rules on recognition and enforcement are based on mutual trust in the administration of justice in the European Union which requires that judicial decisions delivered in one Member State are not only recognised automatically in another Member State, but also that the procedure for making those decisions enforceable in that Member State is efficient and rapid (see Trade Agency , paragraph 40). | 48. Contrary to what the applicant in the main proceedings claims, it also does not follow from paragraphs 43 and 44 of the judgment in Case C‑294/97 Eurowings Luftverkehr [1999] ECR I-7447 that the freedoms of movement guaranteed by the Treaty preclude the application of national legislation such as that in issue in the main proceedings. | 0 |
3,906 | 61
It is clear from the case-law of the Court concerning heading 8473 and Note 2(b) to Section XVI of the CN that the notion of ‘part’ implies a whole for the functioning of which the part is essential (see, to that effect, judgment in Rohm Semiconductor, C‑666/13, EU:C:2014:2388, paragraph 45 and the case-law cited). | 12 In that regard it should be observed that only women can be refused employment on grounds of pregnancy and such a refusal therefore constitutes direct discrimination on grounds of sex . A refusal of employment on account of the financial consequences of absence due to pregnancy must be regarded as based, essentially, on the fact of pregnancy . Such discrimination cannot be justified on grounds relating to the financial loss which an employer who appointed a pregnant woman would suffer for the duration of her maternity leave . | 0 |
3,907 | 34
It should be observed, in that respect, that, according to settled case-law, in the sphere of the common commercial policy and, most particularly, in the realm of measures to protect trade, the EU institutions enjoy a broad discretion by reason of the complexity of the economic, political and legal situations which they have to examine. The judicial review of such an appraisal must therefore be limited to verifying whether the procedural rules have been complied with, whether the facts on which the contested choice is based have been accurately stated, and whether there has been a manifest error in the appraisal of those facts or a misuse of powers (see, inter alia, judgments in Simon, Evers & Co., C‑21/13, EU:C:2014:2154, paragraph 29, and Fliesen-Zentrum Deutschland, C‑687/13, EU:C:2015:573, paragraph 44). | 34. However, although the German version of that provision is ambiguous on that point, it is apparent from the French and English versions of the Sixth Directive that the deduction referred to in Article 17(2) thereof must be made in respect of the tax period in which the two conditions required under the first subparagraph of Article 18(2) are satisfied. In other words, the goods must have been delivered or the services performed and the taxable person must be in possession of the invoice or the document which, under the criteria determined by the Member State in question, may be considered to serve as an invoice. | 0 |
3,908 | 22. Should the taxable person choose to treat capital goods used for both business and private purposes as business goods, the input VAT due on the acquisition or construction of those goods is, as a rule, immediately deductible in full ( Seeling , paragraph 41, and Charles and Charles-Tijmens , paragraph 24). | 41. If the taxable person chooses to treat capital goods used both for business and private purposes as business goods, the VAT due as input tax on the acquisition of those goods is in principle wholly and immediately deductible (see, inter alia , Case C-97/90 Lennartz [1991] ECR I-3795, paragraph 26, and Bakcsi , cited above, paragraph 25). | 1 |
3,909 | 64 Thus, in paragraphs 7 and 8 of its judgment of 25 May 1971 in Case 80/70 Defrenne v Sabena [1971] ECR 445, the Court held that the concept of pay could not cover social security schemes or benefits, such as retirement pensions, which were directly governed by statute to the exclusion of any element of negotiation within the undertaking or occupational sector concerned, and which were obligatorily applicable to general categories of workers. Such schemes give workers the benefit of a statutory scheme, to whose financing the contributions of workers, employers and possibly the public authorities are determined not so much by the employment relationship between employer and workers as by considerations of social policy. | 43. Accordingly, the Austrian legislation must be regarded as having existed on 31 December 1993 for the purposes of Article 57(1) EC. | 0 |
3,910 | 40. It follows that the details of a project cannot be considered to be adopted by a legislative act, for the purposes of Article 1(5) of Directive 85/337, if that act does not include the elements necessary to assess the environmental impact of the project or if the adoption of other measures is needed in order for the developer to be entitled to proceed with the project (see WWF and Others , paragraph 62, and Linster , paragraph 57). | 39 With respect to such a situation, it is for the Community legislature to establish the definitive Community system of exemptions from VAT and thereby to bring about the progressive harmonisation of national VAT laws (see, to that effect, Case C-305/97 Royscot and Others v Customs and Excise [1999] ECR I-6671, paragraph 31). | 0 |
3,911 | 25 In view of the foregoing, it must be emphasised that the principle of protection of legitimate expectations cannot, in a case such as the present, be relied on by a Member State to preclude an objective finding of a failure on its part to fulfil its obligations under the Treaty or secondary legislation, since to admit that justification would run counter to the aim pursued by the procedure under Article 169 of the Treaty (see, to that effect, Case 288/83 Commission v Ireland [1985] ECR 1761, paragraph 22, and Case C-35/97 Commission v France [1998] ECR I-5325, paragraph 45). | 45. La Cour a également jugé que le principe de protection de la confiance légitime s’oppose à ce qu’une modification de la législation nationale prive un contribuable, avec effet rétroactif, du droit dont il disposait antérieurement à ladite modification d’obtenir le remboursement d’impôts perçus en violation du droit de l’Union (voir, en ce sens, arrêt Marks & Spencer, précité, point 46). | 0 |
3,912 | 68. Furthermore, according to settled case-law, if the Commission did not carry out the correction due in respect of a previous year, but tolerated the irregularities on grounds of fairness, the Member State concerned does not acquire any right to demand that the same position be taken with regard to the irregularities with respect to the following financial year by virtue of the principle of legal certainty or the principle of protection of legitimate expectations (Case C-55/91 Italy v Commission , cited above, paragraph 67, Germany v Commission , cited above, paragraph 12, and Case C-373/99 Greece v Commission [2001] ECR I-9619, paragraph 56). | 38. Il découle également de la même disposition que le Tribunal est appelé à apprécier la légalité de la décision de la chambre de recours de l’OHMI en contrôlant l’application du droit communautaire effectuée par celle-ci eu égard, notamment, aux éléments de fait qui ont été soumis à ladite chambre (voir, en ce sens, arrêts du 18 juillet 2006, Rossi/OHMI, C‑214/05 P, Rec. p. I‑7057, point 50; OHMI/Kaul, précité, point 54, et du 26 avril 2007, Alcon/OHMI, C‑412/05 P, non encore publié au Recueil, point 44). | 0 |
3,913 | 59 It should be pointed out, in that regard, that it is clear from the Court's settled case-law that Article 22 of the Directive, which concerns the recognition by the Member States of the validity of data generated by animal 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 of drugs, foodstuffs and other substances or products and the protection of the environment, does indeed require the adoption of appropriate measures of transposition (see Case C-268/97 Commission v Belgium [1998] ECR I-6069, paragraph 14). | 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. | 1 |
3,914 | 51
It should be noted, as observed by the Advocate General in point 54 of his Opinion, that that provision encapsulates the basic principle applying to appeals, namely that an appeal must be directed against the operative part of the General Court’s decision and may not merely seek the amendment of some of the grounds of that decision (see, to that effect, judgment of 15 November 2012, Al-Aqsa v Council and Netherlands v Al-Aqsa, C‑539/10 P and C‑550/10 P, EU:C:2012:711, paragraphs 43 to 45). | 56. Consequently, that right of veto, in so far as it confers on that State an influence on the management and control of EDP which is not justified by the size of its shareholding in that company, is liable to discourage operators from other Member States from making direct investments in EDP since they could not be involved in the management and control of that company in proportion to the value of their shareholdings (see, in particular, Commission v Germany , paragraphs 50 to 52, and Case C‑171/08 Commission v Portugal , paragraph 60). | 0 |
3,915 | 19 According to settled case-law, although direct taxation falls within the competence of the Member States, the latter must none the less exercise that competence consistently with Community law and therefore avoid any overt or covert discrimination on grounds of nationality (Case C-279/93 Schumacker [1995] ECR I-225, paragraphs 21 and 26; Case C-80/94 Wielockx [1995] ECR I-2493, paragraph 16; and Case C-107/94 Asscher [1996] ECR I-3089, paragraph 36). | 23. S’agissant de la libre prestation des services, il convient de constater que la LIS, même si l’interprétation de celle-ci défendue par le Royaume d’Espagne était retenue, soumet à un régime fiscal différent les dépenses afférentes à des activités de R & D‑IT réalisées par des sous-traitants selon qu’elles sont exécutées en Espagne ou à l’étranger. Une telle législation instaure donc une différence de traitement fondée sur le lieu d’exécution de la prestation de services et constitue une restriction au sens de l’article 49 CE (voir, en ce sens, arrêts du 28 octobre 1999, Vestergaard, C‑55/98, Rec. p. I‑7641, point 21, ainsi que Laboratoires Fournier, précité, points 15 et 16). | 0 |
3,916 | 37. According to settled case-law, while the Member States are required to provide legal remedies enabling the annulment of a decision of a contracting authority which infringes the law relating to public contracts, they are entitled in the light of the objective of rapidity pursued by Directive 89/665 to couple that type of review with reasonable limitation periods for bringing proceedings, so as to prevent the candidates and tenderers from being able, at any moment, to invoke infringements of that legislation, thus obliging the contracting authority to restart the entire procedure in order to correct such infringements (see, to that effect, inter alia, Case C-470/99 Universale-Bau and Others [2002] ECR I-11617, paragraphs 74 to 78; Santex , paragraphs 51 and 52; Case C-241/06 Lämmerzahl [2007] ECR I‑8415, paragraphs 50 and 51; and Case C-406/08 Uniplex (UK) [2010] ECR I‑0000, paragraph 38). | 22 Furthermore, observance of the consultation requirement implies that the Parliament has expressed its opinion and the requirement cannot be satisfied by the Council' s simply asking for the opinion ("Isoglucose" judgments, paragraphs 34 and 35 respectively). In an emergency, it is for the Council to use all the possibilities available under the Treaty and the Parliament' s Rules of Procedure in order to obtain the preliminary opinion of the Parliament ("Isoglucose" judgments, paragraphs 36 and 37 respectively). | 0 |
3,917 | 53. In that regard, it should be recalled that the Court has already held that, having regard to the wording of Articles 60 EC and 301 EC, especially to the expressions ‘as regards the third countries concerned’ and ‘with one or more third countries’ used there, those provisions concern the adoption of measures vis-à-vis third countries, since that concept may include the rulers of such a country and also individuals and entities associated with or controlled, directly or indirectly, by them ( Kadi and Al Barakaat International Foundation v Council and Commission , paragraph 166). | 166. The Court of First Instance in fact rightly ruled that, having regard to the wording of Articles 60 EC and 301 EC, especially to the expressions ‘as regards the third countries concerned’ and ‘with one or more third countries’ used there, those provisions concern the adoption of measures vis-à-vis third countries, since that concept may include the rulers of such a country and also individuals and entities associated with or controlled, directly or indirectly, by them. | 1 |
3,918 | 27 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 reimbursement to all actions for repayment of charges or dues levied in breach of Community law (Edis, cited above, paragraph 36, SPAC, cited above, paragraph 20 and Case C-228/96 Aprile, cited above, paragraph 20). | 27. In that regard, it is necessary to recall that the objective of Directive 92/85 is to encourage improvements in the safety and health at work of pregnant workers and workers who have recently given birth or are breastfeeding. | 0 |
3,919 | 64
As a preliminary point, it must be recalled, as the referring court correctly states, that, in accordance with settled case-law, the inapplicability of a technical regulation which has not been notified in accordance with Article 8 of Directive 98/34 can be invoked in proceedings between individuals (see judgments of 30 April 1996, CIA Security International, C‑194/94, EU:C:1996:172, paragraph 54, and 26 September 2000, Unilever, C‑443/98, EU:C:2000:496, paragraphs 40 to 43, 48 and 49). | 43 The Court went on to hold that the wording of Articles 8 and 9 of Directive 83/189 was clear in that they provide a procedure for Community control of draft national regulations, the date of their entry into force being subject to the Commission's agreement or lack of opposition. | 1 |
3,920 | 25 First, non-collection of the duties must have been as the result of an error made by the competent authorities themselves. In this connection, the legitimate expectations of the person liable do not attract the protection provided for in Article 5(2) of Regulation No 1697/79 unless it was the competent authorities themselves which created the basis for the expectations of the person liable (see Case C-348/89 Mecanarte v Chefe do Serviço da Conferência Final da Alfândega [1991] ECR I-3277, paragraphs 22 and 23). Moreover, there is an error attributable to the competent authorities where they have provided erroneous information, as Covita claims in the present case, giving rise to legitimate expectations on the part of the person liable. | 8 DE TELS ACTES NE PRODUISANT D' EFFETS JURIDIQUES QUE DANS LA SPHERE INTERNE DE L' ADMINISTRATION, ILS NE CREENT PAS DE DROITS OU D' OBLIGATIONS DANS LE CHEF DE TIERS . ILS NE CONSTITUENT DONC PAS DES DECISIONS FAISANT GRIEF . LE RECOURS DOIT EN CONSEQUENCE ETRE REJETE COMME IRRECEVABLE . | 0 |
3,921 | 76
In the light of those shortcomings, the order for reference does not provide the governments of the other Member States or other interested parties within the meaning of Article 23 of the Statute of the Court of Justice with the opportunity to submit useful observations on that second question or the Court to provide the referring court with a useful answer to that question to enable it to resolve the dispute pending before it (see, by analogy, judgment of 10 November 2016, Private Equity Insurance Group, C‑156/15, EU:C:2016:851, paragraph 66). | 55. It must be stated that Burda is liable to corporation tax when it distributes profits, but the holders of the shares are Burda International and RCS. | 0 |
3,922 | 31. According to settled case‑law, for a trade mark to possess distinctive character for the purposes of that provision, it must serve to identify the product in respect of which registration is applied for as originating from a particular undertaking, and thus to distinguish that product from those of other undertakings ( Henkel v OHIM , paragraph 34; Case C‑304/06 P Eurohypo v OHIM [2008] ECR I‑3297, paragraph 66; and Case C‑398/08 P Audi v OHIM [2010] ECR I‑0000, paragraph 33). | 45. However, if the protection granted by the Member State of the place of the court seised is applicable only in that Member State, the court seised only has jurisdiction to determine the damage caused within the Member State in which it is situated. | 0 |
3,923 | 42. After all available internal procedures have been exhausted, the Court of Justice shall have jurisdiction in any dispute between the ECB and a member or a former member of its staff to whom these Conditions of Employment apply.
Such jurisdiction shall be restricted to the legality of the measure or decision, unless the dispute is of a financial nature, in which case the Court of Justice shall have unlimited jurisdiction.’
4. Pursuant to Article 12.3 of the ESCB Statute, the Governing Council adopted the Rules of Procedure of the ECB, as amended on 22 April 1999 (OJ 1999 L 125, p. 34), which provide inter alia as follows:
‘Article 11
Staff of the ECB
11.1. Each member of the staff of the ECB shall be informed of his/her position within the structure of the ECB, his/her reporting line and his/her professional responsibilities.
...
Article 21
Conditions of Employment
21.1. The employment relationship between the ECB and its staff shall be determined by the Conditions of Employment and the Staff Rules.
21.2. The Conditions of Employment shall be approved and amended by the Governing Council upon a proposal from the Executive Board. The General Council shall be consulted under the procedure laid down in these Rules of Procedure.
21.3. The Conditions of Employment shall be implemented by Staff Rules, which shall be adopted and amended by the Executive Board.’
Background to the dispute
5. Mr Pflugradt has been employed by the ECB since 1 July 1998. He was appointed to the Directorate-General for Information Systems (‘DG IS’), where from the time he was recruited he has worked as UNIX coordinator.
6. On 9 October 1998 the appellant agreed to the terms of a document entitled ‘UNIX coordinator responsibilities’, which contained a list of the various duties attaching to his post. Those duties included conducting appraisals with members of the UNIX team.
7. On 13 October 1998 the ECB sent the appellant a letter of appointment with retroactive effect to 1 July 1998.
8. On 14 October 1999 the Director-General of DG IS informed the appellant that he would not be responsible for preparing performance appraisals for members of the UNIX team.
9. On 23 November 1999 the appellant had an appraisal interview with his head of division. The head of division set out his assessment of the appellant in the latter’s performance appraisal for 1999, which is the document contested in Case T‑178/00.
10. On 12 January 2000 the appellant put forward several observations on the assessment made of him and wrote on his performance appraisal for 1999 that he reserved the right to reject an unfair appraisal.
11. On 10 March 2000 the appellant applied, under Article 41 of the Conditions of Employment, for an administrative review of the performance appraisal for 1999 on the ground that it was based on factual errors and therefore infringed his contractual rights. He also requested another appraisal for 1999, to be conducted by other persons who would be unbiased.
12. On 10 April 2000 the Director-General of DG IS rebutted the appellant’s claims that the performance appraisal for 1999 contained factual errors and turned down the request for another appraisal procedure to be initiated.
13. On 9 May 2000 the appellant submitted a complaint to the President of the ECB under the grievance procedure, based essentially on the grounds relied on in the context of the administrative review procedure.
14. On 8 June 2000 the President of the ECB dismissed that complaint.
15. By note of 28 June 2000 the Director-General of DG IS sent the appellant a list of his main responsibilities, stating that that list would provide the basis for his annual appraisal. That document was the subject of the action in Case T-341/00.
The judgment under appeal
16. Having joined the two cases (T-178/00 and T-341/00), the Court of First Instance first found that, in his action in Case T-178/00, Mr Pflugradt was seeking annulment of the performance appraisal for 1999 first, in so far as it withdraws from him responsibility for appraising members of the UNIX team and, second, in so far as it contains various assessments of his work.
17. In dismissing those claims, the Court held, in paragraphs 49 and 53 of the judgment under appeal, that although the employment relationship between the ECB and its staff is of a contractual nature and although the binding force of contracts precludes the ECB as an employer from imposing alterations to the conditions under which employment contracts are performed without the consent of the staff members concerned, that principle applies only to the essential elements of the employment contract.
18. In that connection, the Court of First Instance held in paragraph 54 of the judgment under appeal:
‘The ECB, like any other institution or undertaking, has management powers in the organisation of its services and in the management of its staff. As a Community institution it even enjoys wide discretion in the organisation of its services and in the assignment of its staff to perform its public service responsibilities (see, by analogy, the judgments of the Court of Justice in Case 69/83 Lux v Court of Auditors [1984] ECR 2447, paragraph 17, and Case C‑294/95 P Ojha v Commission [1996] ECR I-5863, paragraph 40; and the judgments of the Court of First Instance in Case T-33/90 Von Bonkewitz-Lindner v Parliament [1991] ECR II-1251, paragraph 88, and Case T-176/97 Hick v ESC [1998] ECR-SC I-A-281 and II-845, paragraph 36). It may therefore over time develop its employment relationships with its staff in the best interests of the service in order to arrive at an effective organisation of work and a consistent allocation of the various duties among members of the staff and to adapt to varying needs. A member of staff recruited to a post for an indefinite period which might last until he reached the age of 65 cannot reasonably expect that every aspect of internal organisation will remain unchanged for his entire career or that he will retain throughout his career the responsibilities allocated to him at the time of his appointment.’
19. In paragraphs 58 to 60 of the judgment under appeal, the Court of First Instance then held:
‘58 It is common ground that despite the alteration of his responsibilities the applicant retained his job as UNIX coordinator, falling within the category of professionals and Grade G, with the relevant remuneration.
59 It is clear from the job description of 5 October 1998 that the post of UNIX coordinator is essentially of a technical nature, and that the staff-related and administrative duties are merely secondary. Thus, withdrawal of the duty of appraising members of the UNIX team did not by itself result in downgrading, as a whole, the applicant’s duties clearly below the responsibilities corresponding to his job. In that regard it is appropriate to point out that it is common ground that the applicant has never had to conduct appraisals for members of the UNIX team, as that responsibility was withdrawn from him even before the ECB embarked upon the first round of annual appraisals for its staff. In those circumstances the alteration in question does not represent a downgrading of the applicant’s job and cannot therefore be regarded as infringing an essential element of the employment contract.
60 Consequently, the applicant’s complaints are unfounded. That plea must therefore be rejected.’
20. In dismissing the plea concerning the assessment made in the performance appraisal for 1999, the Court of First Instance held, in paragraphs 68 to 71 of the judgment under appeal:
‘68 Although he claims that the performance appraisal for 1999 is based on material factual errors, the applicant is seeking in fact to challenge the validity of the assessments made by his superiors of his work during 1999.
69 It is not, however, for the Court to substitute its assessment for that of the persons responsible for appraising the applicant’s work. The ECB, like other institutions and bodies of the Community, enjoys wide discretion in appraising the work of members of its staff. Judicial review by the Court of the assessments contained in the annual performance appraisal of a member of the ECB staff relates only to possible procedural irregularities, manifest factual errors in such assessments and any misuse of power (see, by analogy, Case T-63/89 Latham v Commission [1991] ECR II-19, paragraph 19).
70 In the present case, as the applicant has failed to establish the existence of circumstances of that nature his complaints cannot be accepted.
71 Moreover, the reasoning in the performance appraisal for 1999 is sufficiently precise to satisfy the requirements of Article 253 EC, applicable under Article 34.2 of the ESCB Statute to decisions taken by the ECB.’
21. Second, the Court of First Instance found that Mr Pflugradt, in his submissions in Case T-341/00, sought to obtain the annulment of the decision contained in the note of 28 June 2000 in which the ECB, in his opinion, altered his responsibilities.
22. In paragraphs 81 and 82 of the judgment under appeal, the Court of First Instance accepted that that note constituted a measure adversely affecting the applicant and therefore declared the application admissible.
23. However, it dismissed those submissions on the merits, holding in paragraphs 89 and 90 of that judgment:
‘89 First, as the Court has held in paragraph 54 in relation to Case T-178/00, the applicant cannot reasonably expect to retain until retirement age certain specific duties which may have been allocated to him when he was appointed by the ECB. Therefore the applicant’s claims with regard to his allegedly exclusive areas of responsibility must be dismissed.
90 Second, as regards whether the ECB manifestly exceeded the limits of its organisational authority by unilaterally altering the applicant’s responsibilities, it should be noted first that it is not disputed that those alterations were made in the interest of the service. Secondly, the applicant has not supported his arguments with detailed evidence sufficient to demonstrate that those alterations affect essential aspects of his employment contract by reducing his responsibilities as a whole clearly below those which correspond to his post and that they therefore constitute a downgrading of that post. On the contrary, it is plain that the applicant retains his essential duties with regard to the UNIX systems and the coordination of the UNIX specialists. The applicant’s complaints regarding an alleged downgrading of his post must therefore be rejected.’
Forms of order sought
24. Mr Pflugradt claims that the Court should:
– annul the judgment under appeal;
– annul the performance appraisal for 1999;
– annul the note of 28 June 2000 in so far as it alters the responsibilities of the appellant;
– order the ECB to pay the costs.
25. The ECB contends that the Court should:
– dismiss the appeal;
– order Mr Pflugradt to pay the costs.
The appeal
26. The many arguments put forward by Mr Pflugradt must be regarded as constituting claims that the Court of First Instance made errors of law, distorted pleas, arguments and evidence, disregarded the rules of evidence and that its judgment was vitiated by contradictory grounds.
27. It is logical to group these claims into three sets of pleas concerning, respectively, the contractual nature of the employment relationship between the ECB and its staff, the misapplication of the principles governing the Community civil service and the facts on which the performance appraisal for 1999 was based.
The pleas concerning the contractual nature of the employment relationship between the ECB and its staff
28. Mr Pflugradt submits that, as the legal relationship between the ECB and its staff is of a contractual nature as provided by the first sentence of Article 9(a) of the Conditions of Employment, defined pursuant to Article 36.1 of the ESCB Statute, the Court of First Instance could not, without committing an error in law, base its determination of the ECB’s powers of organisation on the case-law on the rules on assignment of officials and other servants referred to in Article 283 EC.
29. As a preliminary point, it must be observed that, under Article 36.2 of the ESCB Statute and Article 42 of the Conditions of Employment, the Court’s jurisdiction in disputes between the ECB and its staff is restricted to the legality of the measure or decision, unless the dispute is of a financial nature.
30. In the present case, it is common ground that the dispute brought before the Court of First Instance by Mr Pflugradt was not of a financial nature. Accordingly, it had only to rule on the legality of the contested measures, that is to say, to determine whether those adopting the measures had respected the legal obligations incumbent upon them, and was not required to rule on whether the measures taken by the ECB were within the terms of the employment contract at issue and its implementing rules.
31. It must be borne in mind that the employment relationship between the ECB and its staff is defined by the Conditions of Employment, adopted by the Governing Council, on a proposal from the Executive Board of the ECB, on the basis of Article 36.1 of the ESCB Statute. They provide, in Article 9(a), that ‘[e]mployment relations between the ECB and its members of staff shall be governed by employment contracts issued in conjunction with these Conditions of Employment’. Article 10(a) of those conditions provides that ‘[e]mployment contracts between the ECB and its members of staff shall take the form of letters of appointment which shall be countersigned by members of staff’.
32. It must be found that those provisions are comparable to those of the Staff Regulations of the European Investment Bank (‘EIB’) regarding which the Court concluded that the system adopted for the employment relations between the EIB and its employees is contractual and is accordingly founded on the principle that individual contracts concluded between the EIB and each of its employees constitute the outcome of an agreement resting on mutual consent (Case 110/75 Mills v EIB [1976] 955, paragraph 22, and Case C-449/99 P EIB v Hautem [2001] ECR I‑6733, paragraph 93).
33. It must therefore be held that the employment relationship between the ECB and its staff is contractual rather than governed by public service regulations.
34. However, the contract at issue was concluded with a Community body, entrusted with public interest responsibilities and authorised to lay down, by regulation, provisions applicable to its staff. It follows that the consent of the parties to such a contract is necessarily circumscribed by all manner of obligations deriving from those particular responsibilities and incumbent upon both the management bodies of the ECB and its staff. It cannot be disputed that the Conditions of Employment are intended to meet those obligations and enable the ECB, in accordance with the third recital of the Conditions of Employment, to secure ‘the service of staff of the highest standard of independence, ability, efficiency and integrity …’.
35. On that point, according to Article 9(a) of the Conditions of Employment, the employment contracts are issued in conjunction with those conditions. Accordingly, by countersigning the letter of appointment provided for by Article 10(a) of the Conditions of Employment, staff agree to be bound by those conditions without being able to negotiate individually any of their terms. Consent is thus to an extent limited to acceptance of the rights and obligations laid down by the Conditions of Employment. It must be borne in mind that, as regards the interpretation of those rights and obligations, Article 9(c) of the Conditions of Employment provides that the ECB is to show due regard for the authoritative principles of the regulations, rules and case-law which apply to the staff of the EC institutions.
36. It is true that the employment contracts of members of the ECB staff may contain other terms agreed to by the member of staff concerned following discussion, relating, for example, to the essential features of the tasks entrusted to him. However, the existence of such terms does not in itself preclude the exercise by the management bodies of the ECB of their discretion to implement the measures entailed by the public interest obligations deriving from the particular responsibilities entrusted to the ECB. Those bodies may for instance be compelled, in order to meet such requirements of the service, and in particular to enable it to adapt to new needs, to take unilateral decisions or measures liable to alter inter alia the implementing conditions of employment contracts.
37. It follows that, in exercising that discretion, the management bodies of the ECB are not in any different position from that in which the management bodies of other Community bodies and institutions find themselves in their relations with their staff.
38. Against that background, the Court of First Instance, confining itself to considering the legality of the contested measures as it was bound to do, was right to see its role as the assessment of legality in the light of the principles applicable to all staff of other Community bodies and institutions. The Court of First Instance has, therefore, not disregarded the contractual nature of the position of the ECB staff members. Moreover, the Court of First Instance did not make an error of law in holding, in paragraph 59 of its judgment, that the alteration of the duties in question did not infringe an essential element of the employment contract.
39. In that light, contrary to Mr Pflugradt’s contentions, the Court of First Instance, in dismissing the arguments relied on in that connection, disregarded neither the ‘principle of institutional balance’ nor ‘the rules of evidence’, nor did it distort the arguments relied on by the applicant in that case.
40. The pleas relied upon relating to the contractual nature of the employment relationship between the ECB and its staff must, therefore, be rejected.
The pleas concerning the application of the principles governing the assignment of staff
41. Mr Pflugradt submits that, even while, mistakenly, in his view, applying the principles governing the assignment of staff to the staff of the ECB, in the light of the law on the Community civil service, the Court of First Instance breached those principles.
42. It should be recalled that the Court of Justice has held that the Community institutions have a broad discretion to organise their departments to suit the tasks entrusted to them and to assign the staff available to them in the light of such tasks, provided such assignment is made in the interest of the service and conforms with the principle of assignment to an equivalent post (see Lux v Court of Auditors , cited above, paragraph 17; Case 19/87 Hecq v Commission [1988] ECR 1681, paragraph 6; and Ojha v Commission , cited above, paragraph 40). | 31. That being so, a taxation mechanism of that design cannot give rise to breach of the principles laid down in relation to VAT, which must at all times – including, therefore, when use is made of the treatment option referred to above – be respected by the Member State concerned. | 0 |
3,924 | 57. It should however be pointed out that 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 (see, among others, Case C‑64/01 Commission v Greece [2002] ECR I‑2523, paragraph 7, and Case C‑456/05 Commission v Germany [2007] ECR I‑10517, paragraph 15). Therefore, a provision which entered into force after the end of that period cannot properly be relied upon in the defence of an action for failure to fulfil obligations. | 40. The TRIPS Agreement and the WPPT are such agreements. | 0 |
3,925 | 82. Nor can that finding be called in question by the argument which the Spanish Government bases on Article 86(2) EC. In that regard, although it is true that paragraph (2) of Article 86 EC, read with paragraph (1) thereof, seeks to reconcile the Member States' interest in using certain undertakings, in particular in the public sector, as an instrument of economic or social policy with the Community's interest in ensuring compliance with the rules on competition and the preservation of the unity of the common market (Case C-202/88 France v Commission [1991] ECR I-1223, paragraph 12; and Case C-157/94 Commission v Netherlands [1997] ECR I-5699, paragraph 39), it is none the less the case that the Member State must set out in detail the reasons for which, in the event of elimination of the contested measures, the performance, under economically acceptable conditions, of the tasks of general economic interest which it has entrusted to an undertaking would, in its view, be jeopardised (Commission v Netherlands , paragraph 58). | 33. Traders who take every precaution which could reasonably be required of them to ensure that their transactions do not form part of a chain which includes a transaction vitiated by VAT fraud must be able to rely on the legality of those transactions without the risk of being made jointly and severally liable to pay the VAT due from another taxable person (see, to that effect, Joined Cases C‑354/03, C‑355/03 and C‑484/03 Optigen and Others [2006] ECR I‑0000, paragraph 52). | 0 |
3,926 | 40. According to settled case-law, in proceedings under Article 234 EC, it is solely for the national court before which the dispute has been brought, and which must assume responsibility for the subsequent judicial decision, to determine in the light of the particular circumstances of the case both the need for a preliminary ruling in order to enable it to deliver judgment and the relevance of the questions which it submits to the Court. Consequently, where the questions submitted concern the interpretation of Community law, the Court is in principle bound to give a ruling (see, inter alia, Case C‑379/98 PreussenElektra [2001] ECR I‑2099, paragraph 38, and Case C‑544/07 Rüffler [2009] ECR I‑0000, paragraph 36). | Eu égard au motif retenu par le Tribunal au point 91 de l’arrêt attaqué, faisant état de l’importance primordiale du maintien
de la paix et de la sécurité internationales, et à l’ensemble des mesures déjà adoptées par l’Union ayant pour objectif d’empêcher
la prolifération nucléaire et d’exercer ainsi une pression sur la République islamique d’Iran afin qu’elle mette fin aux activités
concernées, le Tribunal n’a pas commis d’erreur de droit en considérant, à ce point 91, que « le Conseil a pu estimer, sans
dépasser les limites de son pouvoir d’appréciation, que les atteintes au droit de propriété qui résulteraient de l’application
du critère litigieux étaient appropriées et nécessaires, aux fins d’exercer une pression sur le gouvernement iranien afin
de le contraindre à cesser ses activités de prolifération nucléaire » (voir, en ce sens, arrêt du 28 novembre 2013, Conseil/Manufacturing
Support & Procurement Kala Naft, C‑348/12 P, EU:C:2013:776, point 126). | 0 |
3,927 | 25. According to settled case-law, the meaning and scope of terms for which European Union law provides no definition must be determined by considering their usual meaning in everyday language, while also taking into account the context in which they occur and the purposes of the rules of which they are part (see, inter alia, Case C‑72/95 Kraaijeveld and Others [1996] ECR I‑5403, paragraph 38; Case C‑549/07 Wallentin-Hermann [2008] ECR I‑11061, paragraph 17; and Case C‑473/07 Association nationale pour la protection des eaux et rivières and OABA [2009] ECR I‑319, paragraphs 23 and 24). | 61. However, the fact that a restriction on gambling activities incidentally benefits the budget of the Member State concerned does not prevent that restriction from being justified in so far as it actually pursues objectives relating to overriding reasons in the public interest (see, to that effect, judgments in Zenatti , C‑67/98, EU:C:1999:514, paragraph 36, and Gambelli and Others , C‑243/01, EU:C:2003:597, paragraph 62), which is for the national court to determine.
The proportionality of the restrictions to Article 56 TFEU | 0 |
3,928 | 129 As regards the allegedly disproportionate nature of the fine, it must be borne in mind that it is not for the Court of Justice, when ruling on questions of law in the context of an appeal, to substitute, on grounds of fairness, its own assessment for that of the Court of First Instance exercising its unlimited jurisdiction to rule on the amount of fines imposed on undertakings for infringements of Community law (BPB Industries and British Gypsum v Commission, cited above, paragraph 34, and Ferriere Nord v Commission, cited above, paragraph 31). This complaint must therefore be declared inadmissible in so far as it seeks a general re-examination of the fines or, in the alternative, to have the fine reduced to a reasonable amount. The same applies to the complaint, not made by the appellant before the Court of First Instance, concerning its alleged ignorance of the illicit nature of the conduct designed to defend the German structural crisis cartel, as pointed out by the Advocate General in point 286 of his Opinion. | L’EUIPO et Meissen Keramik contestent l’argumentation de SPM Meissen. | 0 |
3,929 | 41 In fact, it has been clear since the judgment in Bilka that any discrimination, based on sex, in the recognition of that right infringes Article 119 of the Treaty (Vroege, paragraph 29, Fisscher, paragraph 26, Dietz, paragraph 20, and Magorrian and Cunningham, paragraph 29). | 8 THOSE DEFINITIONS SHOW THAT THE SCOPE OF THE TERM "ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES" IS VERY WIDE, INASMUCH AS IT COVERS ALL THE SERVICES PROVIDED BY THE LIBERAL PROFESSIONS, AND THAT THE TERM IS OBJECTIVE IN CHARACTER, IN THE SENSE THAT THE ACTIVITY IS CONSIDERED PER SE AND WITHOUT REGARD TO ITS PURPOSE OR RESULTS . | 0 |
3,930 | 39. In that regard, in paragraph 60 of Zino Davidoff and Levi Strauss , the Court also held that implied consent cannot be inferred:
– from the fact that the proprietor of the trade mark has not communicated to all subsequent purchasers of the goods placed on the market outside the EEA his opposition to marketing within the EEA;
– from the fact that the goods carry no warning of a prohibition on their being placed on the market within the EEA;
– from the fact that the trade mark proprietor has transferred the ownership of the products bearing the trade mark without imposing any contractual reservations and that, according to the law governing the contract, the property right transferred includes, in the absence of such reservations, an unlimited right of resale or, at the very least, a right to market the goods subsequently within the EEA. | 49. Il s’ensuit que, contrairement à ce que prétend la Commission, une interprétation purement littérale du régime particulier des agences de voyages fondée sur le texte d’une ou de plusieurs versions linguistiques, à l’exclusion des autres, ne saurait prévaloir. Conformément à une jurisprudence constante, il y a lieu de considérer que les dispositions du droit de l’Union doivent être interprétées et appliquées de manière uniforme à la lumière des versions établies dans toutes les langues de l’Union. En cas de disparité entre les diverses versions linguistiques d’un texte de l’Union, la disposition en cause doit être interprétée en fonction de l’économie générale et de la finalité de la réglementation dont elle constitue un élément (arrêt du 8 décembre 2005, Jyske Finans, C‑280/04, Rec. p. I‑10683, point 31). | 0 |
3,931 | 16. Adidas and the Commission contend that, on that point, an affirmative answer must be given. The Commission takes the view that such an answer is necessarily inferred from paragraph 25 of Davidoff . | 73. It is apparent from Decision 2010/48 that the European Union has approved the UN Convention. The provisions of that Convention are thus, from the time of its entry into force, an integral part of the European Union legal order (see Case 181/73 Haegeman [1974] ECR 449, paragraph 5, and HK Danmark , paragraph 30). | 0 |
3,932 | 38. However, as the Commission of the European Communities correctly submits in its written observations, where the family member of such a worker has himself secured an individual right under to the first paragraph of Article 7 of Decision No 1/80, he has achieved a sufficient level of integration in the host Member State for his position to be regarded as separable from that of his relative which made possible his access to the territory of that State, and therefore as independent of the position of that relative (see, to that effect, Derin , paragraphs 50 and 71, and Altun , paragraphs 59 and 63). | 374. Furthermore, in so far as it follows from this judgment that the contested regulation must be annulled so far as concerns the appellants, by reason of breach of principles applicable in the procedure followed when the restrictive measures introduced by that regulation were adopted, it cannot be excluded that, on the merits of the case, the imposition of those measures on the appellants may for all that prove to be justified. | 0 |
3,933 | 25. It follows from Article 215(1) of the Customs Code and Articles 378 and 379 of the implementing regulation that the determination of the place where the customs debt was incurred allows the Member State with jurisdiction to recover customs duties to be identified (see, to that effect, Case C-526/06 Road Air Logistics Customs [2007] ECR I-0000, paragraph 26). In the case of forgery, which is characterised by the Commission as an offence or irregularity, the place where the customs debt arises is the place in which the goods were unlawfully removed from customs supervision, as is apparent from a reading of Article 203(2) in conjunction with Article 215(1) of the Customs Code (see, to that effect, in particular, Case C-66/99 D. Wandel [2001] ECR I-873, paragraph 50, and Case C‑371/99 Liberexim [2002] ECR I-6227, paragraph 52). | 73. No argument has been put forward which would justify giving the "standstill" clause relating to freedom of movement for workers a narrower scope than that given to the same clause relating to freedom of establishment and freedom to provide services. | 0 |
3,934 | 24. With regard to the exemptions in Article 13B(b) of the Sixth Directive, the provision does not define "letting" , nor does it refer to relevant definitions adopted in the legal orders of the Member States (see Case C-326/99 "Goed Wonen " [2001] ECR I-6831, paragraph 44). | 42. In the BAI v Commission judgment the Court of First Instance annulled the decision of 7 June 1995 in which the Commission held that the new agreement did not constitute State aid and consequently decided to terminate the review procedure which had been initiated in respect of the aid granted to Ferries Golfo de Vizcaya. | 0 |
3,935 | 41. Finally, so far as concerns the third argument, it is apparent from Joined Cases C‑403/08 and C-429/08 Football Association Premier League and Others [2011] ECR I-0000, paragraphs 76 to 145, that communications to the public by satellite must be capable of being received in all the Member States and that they therefore by definition have a cross-border nature. Furthermore, the communications at issue in the main proceedings display such a nature since they involve Belgian and Netherlands companies, Airfield and Canal Digitaal, and the programme-carrying signals are intended in particular for television viewers residing in Belgium and Luxembourg. | 40. Recitals (6) and (7) in the preamble to that directive state that, for competition to function, non-discriminatory, transparent and fairly priced network access is of paramount importance in bringing about the internal electricity market. | 0 |
3,936 | 43 In view, specifically, of the fact that the amount of the dividend thus depends partly on unknown factors and that entitlement to dividends is merely a function of shareholding, the direct link between the dividend and a supply of services, which is necessary if the dividends are to constitute consideration for the services, does not exist even where the services are supplied by a shareholder who is paid dividends (Floridienne and Berginvest, paragraph 23). | 25. On the other hand, Rule 22(2) of Regulation No 2868/95 provides, in this regard, that, where such an application is made, OHIM is to invite the proprietor of the earlier mark to furnish proof of use of the mark or show that there are proper reasons for non-use within such period as it may specify. | 0 |
3,937 | 19 In that regard, it follows from the case-law of the Court that the protection of workers is among the overriding reasons of public interest capable of justifying a restriction on the freedom to provide services (see Webb, cited above, paragraph 19; Collectieve Antennevoorziening Gouda, cited above, paragraph 14; and Joined Cases C-369/96 and C-376/96 Arblade and Others [1999] ECR I-8453, paragraph 36). | 43. Accordingly, the Austrian legislation must be regarded as having existed on 31 December 1993 for the purposes of Article 57(1) EC. | 0 |
3,938 | 73. By contrast, the very concept of citizenship, as it results from the mere fact that a person holds the nationality of a Member State and not from the fact that that person has the status of a worker, and which, according to the Court’s settled case-law, is intended to be the fundamental status of nationals of the Member States (see, inter alia, Case C‑413/99 Baumbast and R [2002] ECR I‑7091, paragraph 82, and Case C‑34/09 Ruiz Zambrano [2011] ECR I-0000, paragraph 41), as described in Articles 17 EC to 21 EC, is a feature of European Union law at its current stage of development and justifies the recognition, for Union citizens alone, of guarantees which are considerably strengthened in respect of expulsion, such as those provided for in Article 28(3)(a) of Directive 2004/38. | 89 Three series of arguments have been put forward to no avail in opposition to that ruling. | 0 |
3,939 | 67. In that regard, it must be borne in mind that Article 119 of the Treaty and Article 141(1) and (2) EC set out the principle that men and women should receive equal pay for equal work. That principle precludes not only the application of provisions leading to direct sex discrimination, but also the application of provisions which maintain different treatment between men and women at work as a result of the application of criteria not based on sex where those differences of treatment are not attributable to objective factors unrelated to sex discrimination (see Joined Cases C-399/92, C-409/92, C-425/92, C-34/93, C-50/93 and C-78/93 Helmig and Others [1994] ECR I-5727, paragraph 20, and Case C-167/97 Seymour-Smith and Perez [1999] ECR I-623, paragraph 52). | 52 Article 119 of the Treaty sets out the principle that men and women should receive equal pay for equal work. That principle excludes not only the application of provisions leading to direct sex discrimination, but also the application of provisions which maintain different treatment between men and women at work as a result of the application of criteria not based on sex where those differences of treatment are not attributable to objective factors unrelated to sex discrimination (see Joined Cases C-399/92, C-409/92, C-425/92, C-34/93, C-50/93 and C-78/93 Helmig and Others [1994] ECR I-5727, paragraph 20). | 1 |
3,940 | 41. Thirdly, so far as concerns the condition as to proportionality, it must be borne in mind that a system of prior authorisation may, in certain circumstances, be necessary and proportionate to the aims pursued, if the same objectives cannot be attained by less restrictive measures, in particular by a system of declarations (see, to that effect, Joined Cases C-163/94, C-165/94 and C-250/94 Sanz de Lera and Others [1995] ECR I-4821, paragraphs 23 to 28; Konle , cited above, paragraph 44; and Case C-483/99 Commission v France [2002] ECR I-4781, paragraph 46). | 26 However, the restriction on the free movement of capital resulting from that requirement could be eliminated without thereby detracting from the effective pursuit of the aims of those rules. | 0 |
3,941 | 47
Secondly, the CPVO, as a body of the European Union, is subject to the principle of sound administration, in accordance with which it must examine all the relevant particulars of an application for a Community plant variety right with care and impartiality and gather all the factual and legal information necessary to exercise its discretion. It must furthermore ensure the proper conduct and effectiveness of proceedings which it sets in motion (judgment of 19 December 2012, Brookfield New Zealand and Elaris v CPVO and Schniga, C‑534/10 P, EU:C:2012:813, paragraph 51). | 94. Or, il ressort de la jurisprudence de la Cour qu’un acte en matière d’aides d’État, quelle que soit sa forme, constitue une décision lorsque, compte tenu de sa substance et de l’intention de la Commission, celle-ci a définitivement fixé par cet acte, au terme de la phase préliminaire d’examen, sa position sur la mesure en cause et, partant, lorsqu’elle a conclu que celle-ci constituait ou non une aide, qu’elle ne suscitait pas de doutes quant à sa compatibilité avec le marché commun ou qu’elle suscitait de tels doutes (voir, en ce sens, arrêt Athinaïki Techniki/Commission, précité, point 46). | 0 |
3,942 | 69. In those circumstances, on the same grounds as those given in paragraphs 88 to 107 of the judgment in Specht and Others (C‑501/12 to C‑506/12, C‑540/12 and C‑541/12, EU:C:2014:2005), the answer to Question 4 is as follows:
– in circumstances such as those of the case before the referring court, EU law does not require judges who have been discriminated against to be retrospectively granted an amount equal to the difference between the pay actually received and that corresponding to the highest step in their grade;
– it is for the referring court to ascertain whether all the conditions laid down by the case-law of the Court are met for the Federal Republic of Germany to have incurred liability under EU law.
Question 5 | 92. In addition, it is not possible for the referring court to allocate a lower step retroactively to the oldest civil servants because of considerations relating to the protection of legitimate expectations and acquired rights. | 1 |
3,943 | 84
In the second place, it is apparent from settled case-law that the provisions of an international agreement to which the European Union is a party can be relied upon in support of an action for annulment of a measure of secondary EU legislation, of a plea that such a measure is invalid or of an action for compensation only if, first, the nature and the broad logic of the agreement in question do not preclude this and, secondly, the provisions relied upon appear, as regards their content, to be unconditional and sufficiently precise (see, to this effect, judgments in Intertanko and Others, C‑308/06, EU:C:2008:312, paragraphs 43 and 45, and FIAMM and Others v Council and Commission, C‑120/06 P and C‑121/06 P, EU:C:2008:476, paragraphs 110 and 120). | 7 THE ARRANGEMENTS MADE BY REGULATION ( EEC ) NO 563/76 CONSTITUTED A TEMPORARY MEASURE INTENDED TO COUNTERACT THE CONSEQUENCES OF A CHRONIC IMBALANCE IN THE COMMON ORGANIZATION OF THE MARKET IN MILK AND MILK PRODUCTS . A FEATURE OF THESE ARRANGEMENTS WAS THE IMPOSITION NOT ONLY ON PRODUCERS OF MILK AND MILK PRODUCTS BUT ALSO , AND MORE ESPECIALLY , ON PRODUCERS IN OTHER AGRICULTURAL SECTORS OF A FINANCIAL BURDEN WHICH TOOK THE FORM , FIRST , OF THE COMPULSORY PURCHASE OF CERTAIN QUANTITIES OF AN ANIMAL FEED PRODUCT AND , SECONDLY , OF THE FIXING OF A PURCHASE PRICE FOR THAT PRODUCT AT A LEVEL THREE TIMES HIGHER THAN THAT OF THE SUBSTANCES WHICH IT REPLACED . THE OBLIGATION TO PURCHASE AT SUCH A DISPROPORTIONATE PRICE CONSTITUTED A DISCRIMINATORY DISTRIBUTION OF THE BURDEN OF COSTS BETWEEN THE VARIOUS AGRICULTURAL SECTORS . NOR , MOREOVER , WAS SUCH AN OBLIGATION NECESSARY IN ORDER TO ATTAIN THE OBJECTIVE IN VIEW , NAMELY , THE DISPOSAL OF STOCKS OF SKIMMED-MILK POWDER . IT COULD NOT THEREFORE BE JUSTIFIED FOR THE PURPOSES OF ATTAINING THE OBJECTIVES OF THE COMMON AGRICULTURAL POLICY .
| 0 |
3,944 | 64. In paragraph 165 of the judgment under appeal, the General Court rightly pointed out that where, following the annulment of a decision penalising undertakings which have infringed Article 81(1) EC because of a procedural defect concerning exclusively the procedures governing its final adoption by the College of Commissioners, the Commission is to adopt a fresh decision, with substantially the same content and based on the same objections, it is not required to conduct a new hearing of the undertakings concerned (see, to that effect, Limburgse Vinyl Maatschappij and Others v Commission , paragraphs 83 to 111). | 75. Ainsi qu’il résulte du libellé de cette dernière disposition, la possibilité pour un État membre d’appliquer des taux réduits inférieurs au minimum fixé audit article 99 est subordonnée à la réunion de quatre conditions cumulatives, et notamment celle selon laquelle les taux réduits doivent être en conformité avec la législation de l’Union. | 0 |
3,945 | 33. Although in general the principle of legal certainty precludes a Community measure from taking effect from a point in time before its publication, it may exceptionally be otherwise where the purpose to be achieved so demands and where the legitimate expectations of those concerned are duly respected (see, to that effect, Case C-368/89 Crispoltoni [1991] ECR I-3695, paragraph 17; Gemeente Leusden and Holin Groep , cited above, paragraph 59; see also the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in National & Provincial Building Society v. United Kingdom of 23 October 1997, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1997-VII, § 80). | 25 IL EST VRAI QU' A LA DIFFERENCE DU TEXTE DE L' ARTICLE 9 DU TRAITE QUI VISE EXPRESSEMENT LES PRODUITS EN PROVENANCE DE PAYS TIERS QUI SE TROUVENT EN LIBRE PRATIQUE DANS LES ETATS MEMBRES, CELUI DE L' ARTICLE 95 NE CITE QUE LES PRODUITS "DES AUTRES ETATS MEMBRES ". TOUTEFOIS, IL RESULTE DE LA JURISPRUDENCE CONSTANTE DE LA COUR, QUE DANS LE SYSTEME DU TRAITE, LES ALINEAS 1 ET 2 DE L' ARTICLE 95 CONSTITUENT UN COMPLEMENT DES DISPOSITIONS RELATIVES A LA SUPPRESSION DES DROITS DE DOUANE ET DES TAXES D' EFFET EQUIVALENT . ILS ONT POUR BUT D' ASSURER LA LIBRE CIRCULATION DES MARCHANDISES ENTRE LES ETATS MEMBRES DANS DES CONDITIONS NORMALES DE CONCURRENCE, PAR L' ELIMINATION DE TOUTE FORME DE PROTECTION POUVANT RESULTER DE L' APPLICATION D' IMPOSITIONS INTERIEURES DISCRIMINATOIRES A L' EGARD DE PRODUITS D' AUTRES ETATS MEMBRES . EN CE SENS, L' ARTICLE 95 DOIT GARANTIR LA PARFAITE NEUTRALITE DES IMPOSITIONS INTERIEURES AU REGARD DE LA CONCURRENCE ENTRE PRODUITS NATIONAUX ET PRODUITS IMPORTES DES AUTRES ETATS MEMBRES . | 0 |
3,946 | 20 With regard to the argument put forward by the Danish Government to the effect that a worker leaving the host Member country to pursue studies in the Member State of which he is a national cannot rely on the provisions of Article 7(2) of Regulation No 1612/68, it should be borne in mind that, once a Member State offers to its national workers grants to pursue studies in another Member State, that opportunity must be extended to Community workers established within its territory (see the judgment in Case 235/87 Matteucci v Communauté Française of Belgium [1988] ECR 5589, paragraph 16). As is apparent from the judgment in Di Leo, cited above, the fact that the studies are pursued in the State of which the person concerned is a national is without significance in this connection. | 81. Il convient donc de noter que, bien que le libellé du point 3.2.1 de l’encadrement 1994 ainsi que celui des points 36 et 37 de l’encadrement de 2001 ne soient pas identiques, les termes de ce dernier, en ce qui concerne les investissements dont les coûts sont éligibles, ne comportent pas une modification substantielle du dispositif antérieur. | 0 |
3,947 | 27. It should be recalled that, while any question relating to European Union law enjoys a presumption of relevance, the Court nevertheless cannot give an answer where it is quite obvious that the interpretation of European Union law that is sought bears no relation to the actual facts or purpose of the main proceedings (see, to that effect, inter alia, Joined Cases C‑94/04 and C‑202/04 Cipolla and Others [2006] ECR I‑11421, paragraph 25; Joined Cases C‑570/07 and C‑571/07 Blanco Pérez and Chao Gómez [2010] ECR I‑0000, paragraph 36; and Case C‑225/09 Jakubowska and Others [2010] ECR I‑0000, paragraph 28). | 58. In that respect, the diversity of the supporting documents on which the competent authorities may rely, a non-exhaustive list of which is set out in Annex II to that code, and the variety of methods available to those authorities, including interviewing the applicant as provided for in Article 21(8) of that code, confirm the complex nature of the examination of visa applications. | 0 |
3,948 | 72. Secondly, in Truck Center (C‑282/07, EU:C:2008:762), the withholding tax in question was levied solely on interest paid to non-resident recipient companies. However, in the actions in the main proceedings, the applicable legislation subjects both resident taxpayers and non-resident taxpayers to the same method of collecting the tax on dividends, that is to say withholding the tax. | 29
However, in accordance with settled case-law of the Court, a restriction on the freedom to provide services may be permitted if it is justified by overriding reasons in the public interest. Even if that were so, the application of that restriction would still have to be such as to ensure achievement of the aim pursued and not go beyond what is necessary for that purpose (judgment of 18 October 2012 in X, C‑498/10, EU:C:2012:635, paragraph 36). | 0 |
3,949 | 34. That global assessment means that conceptual and visual differences between two signs may counteract aural similarities between them, provided that at least one of those signs has, from the point of view of the relevant public, a clear and specific meaning, so that the public is capable of grasping it immediately (see Case C‑361/04 P Ruiz-Picasso and Others v OHIM [2006] ECR I‑643, paragraph 20; Mülhens v OHIM , paragraph 35; and Case C-171/06 P T.I.M.E ART v OHIM [2007] ECR I-0000, paragraph 49). | 17. For the purposes of the investigation of the second complaint the Commission addressed a letter to Ireland on 8 May 2001, mentioning the report referred to above. | 0 |
3,950 | 56. Finally, at the hearing, the Federal Republic of Germany was also unable to provide information on the quantity of cheese produced in Italy under the PDO ‘Parmigiano Reggiano’ and imported into Germany, making it impossible for the Court to use the factors relating to the consumption of that cheese as indicators of the generic character of the name ‘Parmesan’ (see, to that effect, Germany and Denmark v Commission , paragraph 88). | 20 In order to ensure compliance with that objective, it would seem to be essential to transpose, so far as is possible, the principles enshrined in those articles to Turkish workers who enjoy the rights conferred by Decision No 1/80. | 0 |
3,951 | 40. As the Court of Justice has already held, even if those exceptions are liable to restrict the scope of the prohibition of commercial practices consisting in the linking of an offer of bonuses with the purchase of goods or services, the fact remains that, because of its limited and pre-defined nature, such an exception cannot take the place of the analysis, which must of necessity be undertaken having regard to the facts of each particular case, of the ‘unfairness’ of a commercial practice in the light of the criteria set out in Articles 5 to 9 of the Directive, where, as here in the main proceedings, that practice is not listed in Annex I thereto (see Plus Warenhandelsgesellschaft , paragraph 53 and case-law cited). | 37 The Court has indeed held that an economic entity may, in certain sectors, be able to function without any significant tangible or intangible assets, so that the maintenance of the identity of such an entity following the transaction affecting it cannot, logically, depend on the transfer of such assets (Süzen, paragraph 18, Hernández Vidal, paragraph 31, and Sánchez Hidalgo, paragraph 31). | 0 |
3,952 | 31. Whilst it is true that, in a sector which has not been subject to full harmonisation at Community level, Member States remain, in principle, competent to define the conditions for the pursuit of the activities in that sector, they must, when exercising their powers, respect the basic freedoms guaranteed by the Treaty (see Case C‑514/03 Commission v Spain [2006] ECR I‑963, paragraph 23, and Case C‑257/05 Commission v Germany [2006] ECR I‑134, paragraph 18). | 35 It follows from the scale of those figures and the repetition of the situation which they describe that the instances of overfishing could not but have been the consequence of a failure by the French authorities to comply with their monitoring obligations. The French Government's argument that the Commission is basing itself on no more than a presumption is for that reason unjustified. | 0 |
3,953 | 31. According to settled case-law, the concepts used in the Brussels Convention – which include, in particular, that of ‘consumer’ for the purposes of Articles 13 to 15 of that Convention – must be interpreted independently, by reference principally to the scheme and purpose of the Convention, in order to ensure that it is uniformly applied in all the Contracting States (see, in particular, Case 150/77 Bertrand [1978] ECR 1431, paragraphs 14, 15 and 16; Case C-89/91 Shearson Lehman Hutton [1993] ECR I-139, paragraph 13; Case C‑269/95 Benincasa [1997] ECR I-3767, paragraph 12; Case C-99/96 Mietz [1999] ECR I‑2277, paragraph 26; and Case C-96/00 Gabriel [2002] ECR I-6367, paragraph 37). | Toutefois, il convient de rappeler que l’appréciation, notamment, des éléments de preuve opérée par le Tribunal ne constitue pas, sous réserve du cas de leur dénaturation, une question de droit soumise, comme telle, au contrôle de la Cour dans le cadre d’un pourvoi (voir, en ce sens, arrêt du 18 décembre 2008, Les Éditions Albert René/OHMI, C‑16/06 P, EU:C:2008:739, point 68). | 0 |
3,954 | 18 The first point to note is that, according to established case-law, in the absence of Community rules governing the matter 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, however, that such rules are not less favourable than those governing similar domestic actions (the principle of equivalence) and do not render virtually impossible or excessively difficult the exercise of rights conferred by Community law (the principle of effectiveness) (see, to that effect, Case 33/76 Rewe v Landwirtschaftskammer Saarland [1976] ECR 1989, paragraph 5; Case 45/76 Comet v Produktschap voor Siergewassen [1976] ECR 2043, paragraphs 13 and 16; Joined Cases C-430/93 and C-431/93 Van Schijndel and Van Veen v SPF [1995] ECR I-4705, paragraph 17; Case C-261/95 Palmisani v INPS [1997] ECR I-4025, paragraph 27; Case C-246/96 Magorrian and Cunningham [1997] ECR I-7153, paragraph 37; and paragraph 16 of the judgment of 15 September 1998 in Joined Cases C-279/96, C-280/96 and C-281/96 Ansaldo Energia and Others [1998] ECR I-5025). | 36. In the light of those observations the answer to the third question must be that in the framework of the common system of VAT, national tax authorities are obliged to respect the principle of protection of legitimate expectations. It falls to the referring court to decide whether, in the circumstances of the main proceedings, the taxable person could reasonably have believed that the decision in question had been taken by a competent authority.
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3,955 | 24. In this respect, it should first of all be pointed out that, although, as the German, Netherlands, Austri an, Swedish and United Kingdom Governments as well as the Commission have observed, the Member States are competent, under Article 149(1) EC, as regards the content of teaching and the organisation of their respective education systems, it is none the less the case that that competence must be exercised in compliance with Community law (see, to that effect, Case C‑308/89 di Leo [1990] ECR I‑4185, paragraphs 14 and 15; Case C‑337/97 Meeusen [1999] ECR I‑3289, paragraph 25; Case C‑147/03 Commission v Austria [2005] ECR I‑5969, paragraphs 31 to 35, and Schwarz and Gootjes-Schwarz , paragraph 70) and, in particular, in compliance with the Treaty provisions on the freedom to move and reside within the territory of the Member States, as conferred by Article 18(1) EC (see, to that effect, Schwarz and Gootjes-Schwarz , paragraph 99). | 33. With reference to that recital, the Court held that the centre of a debtor’s main interests must be identified by reference to criteria that are both objective and ascertainable by third parties, in order to ensure legal certainty and foreseeability concerning the determination of the court with jurisdiction to open the main insolvency proceedings ( Eurofood IFSC , paragraph 33, and Interedil , paragraph 49). | 0 |
3,956 | 41 It is to be observed, next, that the application of Article 52 of the Treaty in a given case depends, not on the question whether the Community has legislated in the area concerned by the business which is carried on, but on the question whether the situation under consideration is governed by Community law. Even if a matter falls within the power of the Member States, the fact remains that the latter must exercise that power consistently with Community law (Factortame and Others, paragraph 14; Case C-124/95 Centro-Com [1997] ECR I-81, paragraph 25; Case C-264/96 ICI v Colmer [1998] ECR I-4695, paragraph 19). | 31. Having regard to the foregoing, the answer to the question referred is that Article 9(1) of the VAT Directive is to be interpreted as meaning that a natural person who is already a taxable person for VAT purposes in respect of his activities as a self-employed bailiff must be regarded as a ‘taxable person’ in respect of any other economic activity carried out occasionally, provided that that activity constitutes an activity within the meaning of the second subparagraph of Article 9(1) of the VAT Directive.
Costs | 0 |
3,957 | 50. As regards the argument concerning the need to preserve the coherence of the French tax system, the Court has previously held that the need to safeguard such coherence may justify rules that are liable to restrict fundamental freedoms (see Case C‑204/90 Bachmann [1992] ECR I‑249, paragraph 21; Case C‑157/07 Krankenheim Ruhesitz am Wannsee‑Seniorenheimstatt [2008] ECR I‑8061, paragraph 43; and Commission v Belgium , paragraph 70). | 4 NEVERTHELESS THE LEGAL LINK BETWEEN AN OFFICIAL AND THE ADMINISTRATION IS BASED UPON THE STAFF REGULATIONS AND NOT UPON A CONTRACT . | 0 |
3,958 | 36. Given that once the three-year time-limit from the time the customs debt was incurred has expired, it is no longer possible to communicate a new customs debt and thus regularise the situation arising from a revision or post-clearance examination within the meaning of Article 78(3) of the Customs Code, the principle of legal certainty requires that Member States must be free to limit the use of the procedure provided for under that provision after expiry of the three-year period as from the date on which the initial customs debt was incurred, inter alia by imposing a time-limit on revision (see, to that effect, judgment in Greencarrier Freight Services Latvia , C‑571/12, EU:C:2014:102, paragraphs 40 and 41). | 16. Even though, according to their wording, the provisions of the EC Treaty concerning freedom of establishment are directed to ensuring that foreign nationals and companies are treated in the host Member State in the same way as nationals of that State, they also prohibit the Member State of origin from hindering the establishment in another Member State of one of its nationals or of a company incorporated under its legislation (Case C-264/96 ICI [1998] ECR I‑4695, paragraph 21; Case C-298/05 Columbus Container Services [2007] ECR I‑10451, paragraph 33; and Lidl Belgium , paragraph 19). | 0 |
3,959 | 107. The principles of customary international law mentioned in paragraph 103 of the present judgment may be relied upon by an individual for the purpose of the Court’s examination of the validity of an act of the European Union in so far as, first, those principles are capable of calling into question the competence of the European Union to adopt that act (see Joined Cases 89/85, 104/85, 114/85, 116/85, 117/85 and 125/85 to 129/85 Ahlström Osakeyhtiö and Others v Commission [1988] ECR 5193, paragraphs 14 to 18, and Case C‑405/92 Mondiet [1993] ECR I‑6133, paragraphs 11 to 16) and, second, the act in question is liable to affect rights which the individual derives from European Union law or to create obligations under European Union law in his regard. | 33. The Court has previously held that Article 41(1) of the Additional Protocol may be relied on by an undertaking established in Turkey which lawfully provides services in a Member State and by Turkish nationals who are lorry drivers employed by such an undertaking (see judgments in Abatay and Others , EU:C:2003:572, paragraphs 105 and 106, and Demirkan , EU:C:2013:583, paragraph 40). | 0 |
3,960 | 54. It must be recalled in this regard that, so far as concerns the treatment of VAT that has been improperly invoiced because there is no taxable transaction, it follows from Directive 2006/112 that the two traders involved are not necessarily treated identically. On the one hand, the issuer of an invoice is liable to pay the VAT entered on that invoice even if there is no taxable transaction, in accordance with Article 203 of Directive 2006/112. On the other hand, exercise of the right of deduction by the recipient of an invoice is limited solely to tax corresponding to a transaction subject to VAT, in accordance with Articles 63 and 167 of that directive (Case C‑643/11 LVK – 56 [2013] ECR, paragraphs 46 and 47). | 15. In determining the preceding business year, the Commission must assess, in each specific case and in the light of both its context and the objectives pursued by the scheme of penalties created by the regulation, the intended impact on the undertaking in question, taking into account in particular a turnover which reflects the undertaking’s real economic situation during the period in which the infringement was committed (see Case C‑76/06 P Britannia Alloys & Chemicals v Commission EU:C:2007:326, paragraph 25). | 0 |
3,961 | 45. As is apparent from recitals 4, 6 and 12 in the preamble to Directive 2003/109, the principal objective of that directive is the integration of third-country nationals who are settled on a long-term basis in the Member States (see Case C-508/10 Commission v Netherlands [2012] ECR, paragraph 66). Similarly, as is also apparent from recital 2 in the preamble thereto, the directive seeks, by granting the status of long-term resident to such third-country nationals, to approximate the legal status of third-country nationals to that of Member States’ nationals. | 93. In that respect, first, in accordance with the principle of equivalence, it must be possible to award particular damages, such as exemplary or punitive damages, pursuant to actions founded on the Community competition rules, if such damages may be awarded pursuant to similar actions founded on domestic law (see, to that effect, Brasserie du pêcheur and Factortame , cited above, paragraph 90). | 0 |
3,962 | 33. Conformément à la règle générale énoncée à l’article 73 de la directive TVA, la base d’imposition pour la livraison d’un bien ou la prestation d’un service, effectuées à titre onéreux, est constituée par la contrepartie réellement reçue à cet effet par l’assujetti. Cette contrepartie constitue la valeur subjective, à savoir réellement perçue, et non une valeur estimée selon des critères objectifs (voir, notamment, arrêts du 5 février 1981, Coöperatieve Aardappelenbewaarplaats, 154/80, Rec. p. 445, point 13, et du 26 avril 2012, Balkan and Sea Properties et Provadinvest, C‑621/10 et C‑129/11, point 43). | 38. Furthermore, it must be held that, in a composite mark, a surname does not retain an independent distinctive role in every case solely because it will be perceived as a surname. The finding with respect to such a role may be based only on an examination of all the relevant factors of each case. | 0 |
3,963 | 71. In addition, such a factor can be considered appropriate to achieve the stated aim only if it genuinely reflects a concern to attain that aim pursued in a consistent and systematic manner (see to that effect, inter alia, Joined Cases C‑250/09 and C‑268/09 Georgiev [2010] ECR I‑0000, paragraph 56 and the case-law cited). | 56. It is for the national court to ascertain whether such an age limit genuinely reflects a concern to attain the aims pursued in a consistent and systematic manner (see Case C-169/07 Hartlauer [2009] ECR I-1721, paragraph 55, and Petersen , paragraph 53). In particular, it is for that court to examine whether the legislation at issue in the main proceedings distinguishes between, on the one hand, lecturers and university professors and, on the other hand, other university teaching staff by not providing for the compulsory retirement of the latter, as Mr Georgiev claims. It would thus be necessary to ascertain whether such a distinction corresponds to a necessity in the light of the aims pursued and the particular characteristics of the teaching staff at issue or whether, on the contrary, it indicates an inconsistency in the legislation, which does not therefore satisfy the conditions set out in Article 6(1) of Directive 2000/78. | 1 |
3,964 | 81. In that regard, it has consistently been held that the statement of reasons required by Article 253 EC must be adapted to the nature of the act in question. Whilst that statement of reasons must show clearly and unequivocally the reasoning of the Community institution which adopted the measure in such a way as to enable the persons concerned to ascertain the reasons for it and the competent court to exercise its power of review, the institution is not required to go into every relevant point of fact and law. The question as to whether the statement of reasons for a measure satisfies the requirements of Article 253 EC must be assessed with reference not only to the wording of the measure but also to its context and to the whole body of legal rules governing the matter in question (see, in particular, Case C-15/00 Commission v EIB [2003] ECR I‑7281, paragraph 174). | 16 In the present case it should be noted that the abovementioned French decrees introduced for additives a system, comprising a ban, subject to the possibility of authorization, that applied equally to additives in foodstuffs from Member States where they were lawfully manufactured and marketed. | 0 |
3,965 | 19 The Court notes, first, that the Horvath, Wolf, Einberger, Mol, Happy Family and Witzemann judgments, which concerned narcotic drugs and counterfeit currency, refer to goods which by their very nature and because of their special characteristics cannot be lawfully marketed or introduced into economic channels. Moreover, it is settled case-law that the principle of fiscal neutrality prevents any general distinction between lawful and unlawful transactions. Consequently, the mere fact that conduct amounts to an offence does not entail exemption from tax; that exemption applies only in specific circumstances where, owing to the special characteristics of certain goods or services, any competition between a lawful economic sector and an unlawful sector is precluded (see Lange, paragraph 19, Fischer, paragraph 28, Goodwin and Unstead, paragraph 9, and Case C-158/98 Staatssecretaris van Financiën v Coffeeshop Siberië [1999] ECR I-3971, paragraphs 14 and 21). | 47. Or, ainsi que la Cour l’a déjà jugé, il ne saurait être fait application, au sein de l’Union, de règles prévues par les conventions spéciales visées à l’article 71 du règlement nº 44/2001, telles que celles ressortant de l’article 31, paragraphe 2, de la CMR, que dans la mesure où les principes de libre circulation des décisions et de confiance réciproque dans la justice sous-tendant ce règlement sont respectés (voir, en ce sens, arrêt TNT Express Nederland, précité, point 54 et jurisprudence citée). | 0 |
3,966 | 48. With regard to whether reference may be made to Article 7 of Directive 2003/88, which specifically concerns the right to paid annual leave, it is clear from the Court’s settled case-law that, if national law cannot be interpreted in conformity with the directive — which it is for the referring court to ascertain — Article 7 of that directive may not be invoked in a dispute between individuals, such as that in the main proceedings, in order to ensure the full effect of that right to paid annual leave and to render inapplicable any conflicting provision of national law. Moreover, in such a situation the party adversely affected by the incompatibility of national law with EU law may nevertheless rely upon the case-law deriving from the judgment in Francovich and Others (C‑6/90 and C‑9/90, EU:C:1991:428) in order to obtain, if appropriate, compensation for any damage suffered (see judgment in Dominguez , C‑282/10, EU:C:2012:33, paragraph 43). | 24. Thus, that legislation leads a legacy to be taxed more heavily where the beneficiary is a non-profit-making body which has its centre of operations in a Member State in which the deceased neither actually resided nor worked and, as a consequence, has the effect of restricting the movement of capital by reducing the value of that inheritance (see, by analogy, Eckelkamp and Others , paragraph 45). | 0 |
3,967 | 149. With regard to statements of figures relating to the calculation of fines, it is appropriate to point out that, however useful and desirable such figures may be, they are not essential to compliance with the duty to state reasons for a decision imposing fines; in any event, the Commission cannot, by mechanical recourse to arithmetical formulas alone, divest itself of its own power of assessment (Case C-291/98 P Sarrió v Commission [2000] ECR I-9991, paragraphs 75 to 77, and Limburgse Vinyl Maatschappij and Others , paragraph 464). | 76 Admittedly, the Commission cannot, by a mechanical recourse to arithmetical formulae alone, divest itself of its own power of assessment. However, it may in its decision give reasons going beyond the requirements set out in paragraph 73 of this judgment, inter alia by indicating the figures which, especially in regard to the desired deterrent effect, influenced the exercise of its discretion when setting the fines imposed on a number of undertakings which participated, in different degrees, in the infringement. | 1 |
3,968 | 32. According to the case-law of the Court, it follows from the wording of that provision that the notion of supply of goods does not refer to the transfer of ownership in accordance with the procedures prescribed by the applicable national law but covers any transfer of tangible property by one party which empowers the other party actually to dispose of it as if he were the owner of the property. The purpose of the Sixth Directive might be jeopardised if the requirements for there to be a supply of goods, which is one of the three taxable transactions, were to differ according to the civil law of the Member State concerned (see, to that effect, Case C‑320/88 Shipping and Forwarding Enterprise Safe [1990] ECR I‑285, paragraphs 7 and 8; Case C‑291/92 Armbrecht [1995] ECR I‑2775, paragraphs 13 and 14; Case C‑185/01 Auto Lease Holland [2003] ECR I‑1317, paragraphs 32 and 33; and Case C‑25/03 HE [2005] ECR I‑3123, paragraph 64). | 30. Under Article 4 of Regulation No 40/94 a Community trade mark may consist of any signs capable of being represented graphically, provided that such signs are capable of distinguishing the products or services of one undertaking from those of other undertakings. | 0 |
3,969 | 14FINALLY AS TO THE THIRD QUESTION , IT IS ESTABLISHED - AS THE COURT HELD IN ITS AFORESAID JUDGMENT OF 16 MARCH 1978 IN CASE 117/77 - THAT BY VIRTUE OF THE PROVISIONS OF ARTICLES 93 ( 1 ) AND 96 OF REGULATION NO 574/72 OF THE COUNCIL OF 21 MARCH 1972 FIXING THE PROCEDURE FOR IMPLEMENTING REGULATION NO 1408/71 ( OFFICIAL JOURNAL , ENGLISH SPECIAL EDITION 1972 ( I ), P . 159 ) THE AMOUNT OF BENEFITS PROVIDED UNDER ARTICLE 22 OF REGULATION NO 1408/71 ' ' SHALL BE REFUNDED BY THE COMPETENT INSTITUTION TO THE INSTITUTION WHICH PROVIDED THE SAID BENEFITS AS SHOWN IN THE ACCOUNTS OF THAT INSTITUTION ' ' , AND MOREOVER THAT IT IS TO BE ' ' FULLY ' ' REFUNDED .
| 30
The Court notes in that regard that, according to settled case-law, the right of taxable persons to deduct the VAT due or paid on goods purchased and services received as inputs from the VAT which they are liable to pay is a fundamental principle of the common system of VAT established by EU law (see judgments of 8 January 2002 in Metropol and Stadler, C‑409/99, EU:C:2002:2, paragraph 42, and of 6 September 2012 in Tóth, C‑324/11, EU:C:2012:549, paragraph 23). | 0 |
3,970 | 67
It follows from the case-law of the Court of Justice, however, that the taking into account, by virtue of the principle of equal treatment, of differences between the undertakings that have participated in a single cartel (in particular with regard to the geographic scope of their respective involvement) for the purpose of assessing the gravity of an infringement need not necessarily occur when the multipliers for the ‘gravity of the infringement’ and for the ‘additional amount’ are set but may occur at another stage in the setting of the fine, such as when the basic amount of the fine is adjusted in the light of mitigating and aggravating circumstances under points 28 and 29 of the 2006 Guidelines (see, to that effect, judgments of 11 July 2013, Gosselin Group v Commission, C‑429/11 P, not published, EU:C:2013:463, paragraphs 96 to 100, and of 11 July 2013, Team Relocations and Others v Commission, C‑444/11 P, not published, EU:C:2013:464, paragraphs 104 and 105). | 29. It follows that the process of checking requests for refunds must be regarded as an integral part of the system of export refunds provided for by Regulation No 3665/87. In order to determine which document constitutes the request for refund, the document which must be taken into consideration is not that which seeks the payment of the refund, but that which triggers the system of checks of the request for refund. | 0 |
3,971 | 48. S’agissant des moyens invoqués par la République italienne pour sa défense, il y a lieu de relever que, selon une jurisprudence constante de la Cour, le seul moyen de défense susceptible d’être invoqué par un État membre contre un recours en manquement introduit par la Commission sur le fondement de l’article 108, paragraphe 2, TFUE est celui tiré d’une impossibilité absolue d’exécuter correctement la décision en cause (voir, notamment, arrêts du 20 septembre 2007, Commission/Espagne, C‑177/06, Rec. p. I‑7689, point 46; du 13 novembre 2008, Commission/France, C‑214/07, Rec. p. I‑8357, point 44, et du 14 juillet 2011, Commission/Italie, précité, point 33). | 28 THE EXISTENCE OF A PREVIOUS CRIMINAL CONVICTION CAN , THEREFORE , ONLY BE TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT IN SO FAR AS THE CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH GAVE RISE TO THAT CONVICTION ARE EVIDENCE OF PERSONAL CONDUCT CONSTITUTING A PRESENT THREAT TO THE REQUIREMENTS OF PUBLIC POLICY .
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3,972 | 17. It should be observed as a preliminary point that, according to the settled case-law of the Court, in the procedure laid down by Article 267 TFEU, providing for cooperation between national courts and the Court of Justice, it is for the latter to provide the referring court with an answer which will be of use to it and enable it to determine the case before it. To that end, the Court may have to reformulate the questions referred to it (see judgment in Brasserie Bouquet , C‑285/14, EU:C:2015:353, point 15). The fact that a national court has, formally speaking, worded a question referred for a preliminary ruling with reference to certain provisions of EU law does not prevent the Court from providing that court with all the guidance on points of interpretation which may be of assistance in adjudicating on the case pending before it, whether or not it has referred to those points in its questions. In that regard, it is for the Court to extract from all the information provided by the national court, in particular from the grounds of the decision referring the questions, the points of EU law which require interpretation, having regard to the subject-matter of the dispute (see judgment in Essent Energie Productie , C‑91/13, EU:C:2014:2206, point 36). | 81. S’agissant de la violation des dispositions de la directive 1999/31, alléguée par la Commission à l’appui de son troisième grief, force est de constater que, conformément à l’article 2, sous g), de cette directive, les sites utilisés pour stocker temporairement des déchets dont la durée de stockage est supérieure à un an doivent être considérés comme des décharges au sens de cette même directive et sont, en conséquence, soumis aux dispositions de celle-ci. | 0 |
3,973 | 64. Lastly and in any event, the requirement that the confidentiality of the proceedings of public authorities must be provided for by law applies without prejudice to the other obligations imposed by Article 4 of Directive 2003/4, in particular the obligation of the public authority concerned to balance the interests involved in each particular case (see, in that regard, Case C‑266/09 Stichting Natuur en Milieu and Others [2010] ECR I‑13119, paragraph 58). | 27 In that regard, the fact that the obligation to make such payments is imposed on the subsidiary and the fact that such payment has discharged the subsidiary's liability are indications which establish that those payments by the parent company of a subsidiary must be deemed to have been made by the subsidiary (see, to that effect, ESTAG, cited above, paragraph 39). | 0 |
3,974 | 36. In that regard, the Court has already held that whilst neither point (3)(b) of the first paragraph of Article 63 EC, a provision which was reproduced in Article 79(2)(c) TFEU, nor Directive 2008/115, adopted inter alia on the basis of the first of those two provisions, precludes Member States from having competence in criminal matters in the area of illegal immigration and illegal stays, they must adjust their legislation in that area in order to ensure compliance with European Union law. In particular, those States may not apply criminal legislation capable of imperilling the achievement of the objectives pursued by that directive, thus depriving it of its effectiveness (see Case C‑61/11 PPU El Dridi [2011] ECR I‑3015, paragraphs 54 and 55, and Case C‑329/11 Achughbabian [2011] ECR I‑0000, paragraph 33). | 55. In particular, those States may not apply rules, even criminal law rules, which are liable to jeopardise the achievement of the objectives pursued by a directive and, therefore, deprive it of its effectiveness. | 1 |
3,975 | 44. Under Articles 6 and 7 of Directive 98/5, a European lawyer must comply not only with the rules of professional conduct applicable in his home Member State but also with those of the host Member State, failing which he will incur disciplinary sanctions and exposure to professional liability (see Luxembourg v Parliament and Council , paragraphs 36 to 41). One of the rules of professional conduct applicable to lawyers is an obligation, like that provided for in the Code of Conduct adopted by the Council of Bars and Law Societies of the European Union (CCBE), breach of which may lead to disciplinary sanctions, not to handle matters which the professionals concerned know or ought to know they are not competent to handle, for instance owing to lack of linguistic knowledge (see, to that effect, Luxembourg v Parliament and Council , paragraph 42). Communication with clients, the administrative authorities and professional bodies of the host Member State, like compliance with the rules of professional conduct laid down by the authorities of that Member State, requires a European lawyer to have sufficient linguistic knowledge or recourse to assistance where that knowledge is insufficient. | 14 The Directive thus provides for charging a capital duty on the raising of capital, which, according to the sixth and seventh recitals in the preamble, should be harmonized with regard both to its structures and to its rates, so as not to interfere with the movement of capital (Case 161/78 Conradsen v Ministeriet for Skatter og Afgifter [1979] ECR 2221, paragraph 11). That capital duty is governed by Articles 2 to 9 of the Directive. | 0 |
3,976 | 61
It should be noted at the outset that the obligation to provide information, set out in Article 10(2) of Directive 2008/48, contributes to attaining the objective pursued by that directive, which, as can be seen from recitals 7 and 9 to that directive, consists in providing, as regards consumer credit, full and mandatory harmonisation in a number of key areas, which is regarded as necessary in order to ensure that all consumers in the European Union enjoy a high and equivalent level of protection of their interests and to facilitate the emergence of a well-functioning internal market in consumer credit (see, by analogy, judgment of 18 December 2014 in CA Consumer Finance, C‑449/13, EU:C:2014:2464, paragraph 21 and the case-law cited). | 114. If the Commission did not have such a power, undertakings might be able to take advantage of late payments, thereby weakening the effect of penalties. | 0 |
3,977 | 45. Thus, for the purposes of determining the place of normal residence, both the occupational and personal ties of the person concerned to a given place, as well as the duration of those ties, must be taken into consideration and, where those ties are not concentrated in a single Member State, the second subparagraph of Article 7(1) of the Directive gives primacy to personal ties over occupational ties. In assessing the personal and occupational ties of the person concerned, all the relevant facts must be taken into consideration, such as, in particular, his actual presence and that of the members of his family, availability of accommodation, the place where business is conducted and the place where his property interests are situated (see, to that effect, Louloudakis , paragraphs 52, 53 and 55). | 27. Applying that case-law, the Court has repeatedly held that it has jurisdiction to give preliminary rulings on questions concerning Community provisions in situations where the facts of the cases being considered by the national courts were outside the scope of Community law but where those provisions had been rendered applicable either by domestic law or merely by virtue of terms in a contract (see, as regards the application of Community law by domestic law, Dzodzi and Gmurzynska-Bscher , cited above; Case 166/84 Thomasdünger [1985] ECR 3001; Case C-384/89 Tomatis and Fulchiron [1991] ECR I-127 and, as regards the application of Community law by the effect of contractual provisions, Case C-88/91 Federconsorzi [1992] ECR I-4035 and Case C-73/89 Fournier [1992] ECR I-5621, all those cases being hereinafter referred to as ‘the Dzodzi line of cases’). In those cases, the provisions of domestic law and the relevant contractual terms, which incorporated Community provisions, clearly did not limit application of the latter. | 0 |
3,978 | 62. A restriction on freedom of establishment and the free movement of capital can be accepted where it serves overriding requirements in the public interest, is suitable for securing the attainment of the objective which it pursues and does not go beyond what is necessary in order to attain it (for freedom of establishment, see, to this effect, Case C-518/06 Commission v Italy , paragraph 72, and for the free movement of capital, see, to this effect, Commission v Germany , paragraphs 72 and 73). | 43. Accordingly, the Austrian legislation must be regarded as having existed on 31 December 1993 for the purposes of Article 57(1) EC. | 0 |
3,979 | 31
In the second place, it should be noted that, according to the Court’s settled case-law, it follows from the need for a uniform application of EU law that, where a provision thereof makes no reference to the law of the Member States with regard to a particular concept, that concept must be given an autonomous and uniform interpretation throughout the European Union which must take into account the context of the provision and the objective pursued by the legislation in question (see, inter alia, judgment of 9 November 2016, Wathelet, C‑149/15, EU:C:2016:840, paragraph 28 and case-law cited). | 45. Thus, Article 79 of the Directive provides that the granting of authorisation to operate as a wholesaler in medicinal products is contingent on the existence of suitable premises, installations and equipment and qualified staff, so as to ensure proper conservation and distribution of the medicinal products. | 0 |
3,980 | 56. However, the Court has also stated that a general presumption of tax avoidance or evasion based on the fact that a service provider is based in another Member State is not sufficient to justify a fiscal measure which compromises the objectives of the Treaty (see, to that effect, Centro di Musicologia Walter Stauffer , C‑386/04, EU:C:2006:568, paragraph 61; Commission v Belgium , EU:C:2006:702, paragraph 35; and Commission v Spain , C‑153/08, EU:C:2009:618, paragraph 39). | 50. Toutefois, le juge de l’Union doit notamment vérifier non seulement l’exactitude matérielle des éléments de preuve invoqués, leur fiabilité et leur cohérence, mais également contrôler si ces éléments constituent l’ensemble des données pertinentes devant être prises en considération pour apprécier une situation complexe et s’ils sont de nature à étayer les conclusions qui en sont tirées (arrêts précités Commission/Scott, point 65, et Frucona Košice/Commission, point 76). | 0 |
3,981 | 47. It must be recalled that the need to safeguard the balanced allocation between the Member States of the power to tax may be accepted, in particular, where the system in question is designed to prevent conduct capable of jeopardising the right of a Member State to exercise its powers of taxation in relation to activities carried out in its territory (see Case C‑231/05 Oy AA [2007] ECR I‑6373, paragraph 54; Case C‑379/05 Amurta [2007] ECR I‑9569, paragraph 58; Aberdeen Property Fininvest Alpha , paragraph 66; and Commission v Germany , paragraph 77). | 62
As pointed out, in the context of the present case, by the referring court, it is also settled case-law that the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Charter are applicable in all situations governed by EU law and that they must, therefore, in particular be complied with where national legislation falls within the scope of EU law (see, in particular, judgment of 26 February 2013, Åkerberg Fransson , C‑617/10, EU:C:2013:105, paragraphs 19 to 21). | 0 |
3,982 | 58. Internet advertising on the basis of keywords corresponding to trade marks constitutes such a practice in that its aim, as a general rule, is merely to offer internet users alternatives to the goods or services of the proprietors of those trade marks (see, to that effect, Google France and Google , paragraph 69). | 60. Since nothing prevents the tax authorities of the Member State of taxation from requiring a taxpayer, wishing to obtain the deduction for tax purposes for gifts made for the benefit of bodies established in another Member State, to provide the relevant evidence, that Member State of taxation cannot invoke the need to safeguard the effectiveness of fiscal supervision to justify national legislation which absolutely prevents the taxpayer from producing such evidence. | 0 |
3,983 | 53. In particular, as is clear from the actual wording of paragraph 33 of the judgment in Kadiman , the host Member State may subject the residence of the member of the family of the Turkish worker only to conditions intended to guarantee full compliance with the objective pursued by the first paragraph of Article 7 of Decision No 1/80, by ensuring that the person concerned does not reside in its territory in disregard of the spirit and purpose of that provision, as stated in paragraph 45 of the present judgment. | 26. À cet égard, il convient également de rappeler que l’existence d’un manquement doit être appréciée en fonction de la situation de l’État membre telle qu’elle se présentait au terme du délai fixé dans l’avis motivé et que les changements intervenus par la suite ne sauraient être pris en compte par la Cour (voir, notamment, arrêts du 26 avril 2007, Commission/Italie, C‑135/05, Rec. p. I‑3475, point 36, et du 25 mars 2010, Commission/Grèce, C‑169/09, point 11). | 0 |
3,984 | 35
That interpretation is not called into question by the finding that full implementation of the objective sought by Directive 89/665 would be undermined if candidates and tenderers were allowed to invoke, at any stage of the award procedure, infringements of the rules of public procurement, thus obliging the contracting authority to restart the entire procedure in order to correct such infringements (judgment of 12 March 2015, eVigilo, C‑538/13, EU:C:2015:166, paragraph 51 and the case-law cited). That finding concerns the justification of reasonable time limits for applying for review of decisions which may be challenged and not the barring of an independent review of a decision allowing a tenderer to participate in a public procurement procedure, such as follows from the legislation at issue in the main proceedings. | 31 The argument of the French Government to the effect that since the CSG is really to be categorised as a tax it falls outside the scope of Regulation No 1408/71 and accordingly is not caught by the prohibition against overlapping legislation cannot be accepted. | 0 |
3,985 | 55. Thus, where a Member State has a system for preventing or mitigating a series of charges to tax or economic double taxation for dividends paid to residents by resident companies, it must treat dividends paid to residents by non-resident companies in the same way (see, to that effect, Case C-315/02 Lenz [2004] ECR I‑7063, paragraphs 27 to 49, and Case C-319/02 Manninen [2004] ECR I‑7477, paragraphs 29 to 55). | 52. In that regard, it need only be noted that confirmation of passing the final examination of the ENSP course may be regarded as a diploma within the meaning of Article 1(a) of the Directive in view of its essential function, namely to confirm that the person concerned has successfully completed a post-secondary course of at least three years ' duration which confers the professional qualifications required for the taking up of a regulated profession. That conclusion is not affected by the fact that the diploma does not take the form of a formal document. | 0 |
3,986 | 8 In view of these arguments it should be pointed out first, that, according to the Court' s established case-law, a contribution by the public authorities to the capital of an undertaking, in whatever form, may constitute State aid when the conditions referred to in Article 92 of the Treaty are fulfilled, and that, in order to determine whether such contributions amount to State aids, it must be considered whether, in similar circumstances, a private investor of a stature comparable to that of the bodies administering the public sector might have been induced to provide contributions of capital to a like extent (Case C-305/89 Italy v Commission [1991] ECR 1603, paragraphs 18 and 19 of the judgment). | 18 It should be pointed out in this connection that, according to settled case-law, investment by the public authorities in the capital of undertakings, in whatever form, may constitute State aid where the conditions set out in Article 92 are fulfilled. | 1 |
3,987 | 36
It should be borne in mind that, in accordance with the settled case-law of the Court, the General Court’s obligation to state reasons does not require it to provide an account which follows exhaustively and one by one all the arguments put forward by the parties to the case; the reasoning may therefore be implicit, on condition that it enables the persons concerned to know why the General Court has not upheld their arguments and provides the Court of Justice with sufficient material for it to exercise its power of review (see, to that effect, in particular, judgments of 7 January 2004, Aalborg Portland and Others v Commission, C‑204/00 P, C‑205/00 P, C‑211/00 P, C‑213/00 P, C‑217/00 P and C‑219/00 P, EU:C:2004:6, paragraph 372, and of 9 September 2008, FIAMM and Others v Council and Commission, C‑120/06 P and C‑121/06 P, EU:C:2008:476, paragraph 96). | 43. Where a medium allows the consumer to store the information which has been addressed to him personally, ensures that its content is not altered and that the information is accessible for an adequate period, and gives consumers the possibility to reproduce it unchanged, that medium must be regarded as ‘durable’ within the meaning of that provision. | 0 |
3,988 | 26
Article 3(1) of that directive lays down the guiding principles, naming them ‘general principles’, that must be complied with in the implementation of the directive (see, to that effect, the judgment of 15 October 2009, Audiolux and Others, C‑101/08, EU:C:2009:626, paragraph 51). Included amongst those principles is the principle that if a person acquires control of a company, the other holders of securities must be protected. | 170
In addition, it is for the persons pleading the illegality of an anti-dumping regulation to adduce arguments and evidence to show that factors other than those relating to the imports could have had such importance that they called into question the causal link between the injury suffered by the Union industry and the dumped imports (judgments in Transnational Company ‘Kazchrome’ and ENRC Marketing v Council, C‑10/12 P, EU:C:2013:865, paragraph 28, and TMK Europe, C‑143/14, EU:C:2015:236, paragraph 42). | 0 |
3,989 | 40. In that regard, it must be borne in mind that that provision is a derogation which enables, in certain circumstances, Member States to retain their existing legislation in respect of exclusion from the right of deduction, as at the date of entry into force of the Sixth Directive for the Member State concerned, until such time as the Council has adopted the provisions envisaged by that article (see Case C‑371/07 Danfoss and AstraZeneca [2008] ECR I‑9549, paragraph 28, and Joined Cases C‑538/08 and C‑33/09 X Holding and Oracle Nederland [2010] ECR I‑0000, paragraph 38). | 70. In respect of the description of an odour, although it is graphic, it is not sufficiently clear, precise and objective. | 0 |
3,990 | 25. It must be recalled that, according to settled case-law, in proceedings under Article 226 EC the question whether a Member State had failed to fulfil its obligations must be determined by reference to the situation prevailing in that Member State at the end of the period laid down in the reasoned opinion and the Court cannot take account of any subsequent changes (see Case C-423/00 Commission v Belgium [2002] ECR I-593, paragraph 14, and Case C-254/05 Commission v Belgium [2007] ECR I‑4269, paragraph 39). | 49. As regards immunity from or not imposing a fine, in order for such treatment – which is moreover at issue in the main proceedings – not to undermine the effective and uniform application of Article 101 TFEU, it can be accorded in strictly exceptional situations only, such as where an undertaking’s cooperation has been decisive in detecting and actually suppressing the cartel. | 0 |
3,991 | 62. A principle such as that proposed by Audiolux presupposes legislative choices, based on a weighing of the interests at issue and the fixing in advance of precise and detailed rules (see, by analogy, Case 41/69 ACF Chemiefarma v Commission [1970] ECR 661, paragraphs 18 to 20; Case 265/78 Ferwerda [1980] ECR 617, paragraph 9; and the order of 5 March 1999 in Case C‑153/98 P Guérin automobiles v Commission [1999] ECR I‑1441, paragraph 14 and 15) and cannot be inferred from the general principle of equal treatment. | 21 According to the Court's case-law, whilst the fact that a national law or regulation has not been mentioned in the declarations referred to in Article 5 of Regulation No 1408/71 is not of itself proof that that law or regulation does not fall within the field of application of the regulation, the fact that a Member State has specified a law in its declaration must be accepted as proof that the benefits granted on the basis of that law are social security benefits within the meaning of Regulation No 1408/71 (see, in particular, Case 35/77 Beerens [1977] ECR 2249). | 0 |
3,992 | 72
It has therefore been held in relation to a concession awarded in 1984, although the Court had not established at that time that contracts with certain cross-border interest might be subject to a duty of transparency, that the principle of legal certainty requires that the termination of such a concession be coupled with a transitional period enabling the contracting parties to untie their contractual relations on acceptable terms, inter alia, from an economic point of view (see, to that effect, judgments of 17 July 2008 in ASM Brescia, C‑347/06, EU:C:2008:416, paragraphs 70 and 71, and 14 November 2013 in Belgacom, C‑221/12, EU:C:2013:736, paragraph 40). | 43. Accordingly, the Austrian legislation must be regarded as having existed on 31 December 1993 for the purposes of Article 57(1) EC. | 0 |
3,993 | 40
In exercising those powers, Member States must nonetheless comply with EU law and, in particular, with the provisions of the FEU Treaty giving every citizen of the Union the right to move and reside within the territory of the Member States (judgment of 21 February 2013, Salgado González, C‑282/11, EU:C:2013:86, paragraph 37 and the case-law cited). | 85. À cet égard, il y a lieu de rappeler que le Tribunal est seul compétent pour contrôler la façon dont la Commission a apprécié dans chaque cas particulier la gravité des comportements illicites. Dans le cadre du pourvoi, le contrôle de la Cour a pour objet, d’une part, d’examiner dans quelle mesure le Tribunal a pris en considération, d’une manière juridiquement correcte, tous les facteurs essentiels pour apprécier la gravité d’un comportement déterminé à la lumière des articles 81 CE et 23 du règlement n° 1/2003 et, d’autre part, de vérifier si le Tribunal a répondu à suffisance de droit à l’ensemble des arguments invoqués au soutien de la demande de suppression de l’amende ou de réduction du montant de celle-ci (voir, notamment, arrêts précités Baustahlgewebe/Commission, point 128, ainsi que Dansk Rørindustri e.a./Commission, point 244). | 0 |
3,994 | 36. A woman who is treated unfavourably because of absence on maternity leave suffers discrimination on the ground of her pregnancy and of that leave. Such conduct constitutes discrimination on the grounds of sex within the meaning of Directive 76/207 (Case C-342/93 Gillespie and Others [1996] ECR I‑475, paragraph 22; Thibault , paragraphs 29 and 32; and Case C-147/02 Alabaster , [2004] ECR I-0000, paragraph 47). | 35 Consequently, it must be held that, by precluding by regulation or administrative practice on the grounds of their nationality employed or self-employed workers from other Member States and the members of their families from being attributed large-family status for the purpose of the award of special benefits for such families and from being awarded family allowances, the Hellenic Republic has failed to fulfil its obligations under Articles 48 and 52 of the EC Treaty, Article 7 of Regulation No 1612/68, Article 7 of Regulation No 1251/70, Article 7 of Directive 75/34 and Article 3 of Regulation No 1408/71. | 0 |
3,995 | 21. That essential function of trade marks has been incorporated by the European Union legislature into Article 2 of Directive 2008/95, which provides that signs which are capable of being represented graphically may only constitute a trade mark if they are capable of distinguishi ng the goods or services of one undertaking from those of other undertakings (Case C‑517/99 Merz & Krell [2001] ECR I‑6959, paragraph 23, and Björnekulla Fruktindustrier , paragraph 21). | 50. It is for the tax authorities, having found fraud or irregularities committed by the issuer of the invoice, to establish, on the basis of objective factors and without requiring the recipient of the invoice to carry out checks which are not his responsibility, that that recipient knew, or should have known, that the transaction on which the right to deduct is based was connected with VAT fraud, this being a matter for the referring court to determine (see, to that effect, judgments in Bonik , C‑285/11, EU:C:2012:774, paragraph 45, and in LVK — 56 , C‑643/11, EU:C:2013:55, paragraph 64). | 0 |
3,996 | 78. Provisions which preclude or deter a national of a Member State from leaving his country of origin to exercise his right to freedom of movement therefore constitute an obstacle to that freedom even if they apply without regard to the nationality of the workers concerned (Case C-10/90 Masgio [1991] ECR I-1119, paragraphs 18 and 19, and Terhoeve , paragraph 39, and Sehrer , cited above, paragraph 33). | 18 More specifically, the Court has accepted that the aim of Articles 48 to 51 of the Treaty would not be attained if, as a consequence of the exercise of their right to freedom of movement, migrant workers were to lose the advantages in the field of social security guaranteed to them by the laws of a single Member State (see, for example, Case 24/75 Petroni v ONPTS [1975] ECR 1149, paragraph 13; Case 807/79 Gravina v Landesversicherungsanstalt Schwaben [1980] ECR 2205, paragraph 6; Case 284/84 Spruyt, cited above, paragraph 19; and Case C-293/88 Winter-Lutzins, cited above, paragraph 14). Such a consequence could deter Community workers from exercising their right to freedom of movement and would therefore constitute an obstacle to that freedom (see Case C-228/88 Bronzino v Kindergeldkassse [1990] ECR I-531, paragraph 12, and Case C-12/89 Gatto v Bundesanstalt fuer Arbeit [1990] ECR I-557). | 1 |
3,997 | 82. Furthermore, measures on grounds of public policy or public security may be taken only following a case-by-case assessment by the competent national authorities showing that the personal conduct of the individual concerned constitutes at present a genuine and sufficiently serious threat to a fundamental interest of society. In that assessment, those authorities are also required to observe both the principle of proportionality and the fundamental rights of the person concerned, in particular, the right to privacy and family life (see, to that effect, Case C‑303/08 Bozkurt , paragraphs 57 to 60 and the case-law cited). | 8. À cet égard, il convient de rappeler que, selon une jurisprudence constante, l’existence d’un manquement doit être appréciée en fonction de la situation de l’État membre telle qu’elle se présentait au terme du délai fixé dans l’avis motivé et que les changements intervenus par la suite ne sauraient être pris en compte par la Cour (voir, notamment, arrêt du 17 janvier 2008, Commission/Allemagne, C‑152/05, Rec. p. I‑39, point 15 et jurisprudence citée). | 0 |
3,998 | 23 In addition, where, as in this case, the measures categorized by the Commission as new aid have been implemented, the legal effects of that categorization are definitive. It is clear from the judgment in Case C-354/90 Fédération Nationale du Commerce Extérieur des Produits Alimentaires v French State [1991] ECR I-5505 that even a final decision by the Commission declaring the aid compatible with the common market could not regularize ex post facto the implementing measures which would have to be deemed to be adopted in breach of the prohibition laid down in the final sentence of Article 93(3). | 55. As follows from Articles 91, 92 and 98 of the Customs Code, the transit and customs warehousing procedures are respectively characterised by the movement of goods between customs offices and the storage of goods in a warehouse under customs supervision. On any view, those operations cannot, as such, be regarded as the putting of goods on sale in the European Union (see, with regard to intra‑Community transit operations, Case C‑115/02 Rioglass and Transremar [2003] ECR I‑12705, paragraph 27, and Montex Holdings , paragraph 19). | 0 |
3,999 | null | 50. First of all, with regard to objectives, the Court has already held that the EEC‑Turkey Association pursues a solely economic purpose ( Ziebell , paragraph 64). The Association Agreement and its Additional Protocol are intended essentially to promote the economic development of Turkey ( Savas , paragraph 53). | 0 |
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