CJEU – Recent Developments in Value Added Tax 2016

S. 13Infringement Procedure as a Tool for VAT Harmonization

Marta Owsiany-Hornung

1. S. 14Introduction

An important aspect of the VAT field of EU law is that harmonization via legally binding acts is difficult, since they require unanimous adoption by the Council. However, infringement actions may go some way to compensating for the lack of action by the Council. While infringement procedures are not a harmonization tool as such, they nevertheless lead to uniform application of existing rules of EU law and can, from this perspective, be seen as an ancillary harmonization tool. Moreover, along with preliminary rulings, infringement rulings can clarify the interpretation of VAT rules. They operate in this context as an indirect harmonization tool. That does not mean, however, that infringement procedures are always effective as a harmonization tool.

An important practical difficulty in this respect is the burden of proof, the legal obligation is on the Commission to demonstrate clearly that there has been an infringement, which is often particularly challenging in this specific field of EU law. In effect, this means that where different Member States apply the same VAT rule in a different manner, ...