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50. In that regard, the Court has also stated, as correctly observed by the Commission, that advertising spots are forms of promotion usually lasting a very short time, having a very strong suggestive impact, generally appearing in groups at varying intervals during or between programmes, and produced either by those who supply the products or services or by their agents, rather than by the broadcasters themselves ( RTI and Others , paragraph 31).

31 Direct offers to the public are broadcasts presenting products which may be ordered directly by telephone, mail or videotext and which are delivered to viewers at home. Programmes intended to promote direct offers to the public are significantly longer than spot advertisements, which are forms of promotion usually lasting a very short time, having a very strong suggestive impact, generally appearing in groups at varying intervals during or between programmes, and produced either by those who supply the products or services or by their agents, rather than by the broadcasters themselves.

18. It should be observed as a preliminary point that, according to settled case-law, 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. With this in mind, the Court of Justice may have to reformulate the questions referred to it (judgment in Lukoyl Neftohim Burgas , C‑330/13, EU:C:2014:1757, paragraph 29 and the case-law cited).

63. Where an interpretation in accordance with the objective of Directive 89/665 is not possible, the national court must refrain from applying provisions of national law which are at variance with that directive (Case 106/77 Simmenthal [1978] ECR 629, paragraph 24, and Santex , paragraph 64). Article 1(1) of Directive 89/665 is unconditional and sufficiently precise to be relied on against a contracting authority (see, to that effect, Case C‑15/04 Koppensteiner [2005] ECR I‑4855, paragraph 38).

24THE FIRST QUESTION SHOULD THEREFORE BE ANSWERED TO THE EFFECT THAT A NATIONAL COURT WHICH IS CALLED UPON , WITHIN THE LIMITS OF ITS JURISDICTION , TO APPLY PROVISIONS OF COMMUNITY LAW IS UNDER A DUTY TO GIVE FULL EFFECT TO THOSE PROVISIONS , IF NECESSARY REFUSING OF ITS OWN MOTION TO APPLY ANY CONFLICTING PROVISION OF NATIONAL LEGISLATION , EVEN IF ADOPTED SUBSEQUENTLY , AND IT IS NOT NECESSARY FOR THE COURT TO REQUEST OR AWAIT THE PRIOR SETTING ASIDE OF SUCH PROVISION BY LEGISLATIVE OR OTHER CONSTITUTIONAL MEANS .

81 On the one hand, as the Court has already held, the question whether a tax is an integral part of an aid financed by a tax depends not on the existence of a competitive relationship between the person liable to pay the tax and the beneficiary of the aid, but only on whether that tax is hypothecated to the aid in question under the relevant national legislation (see, to that effect, judgment of 22 December 2008, Régie Networks, C‑333/07, EU:C:2008:764, paragraphs 93 to 99).

29 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 (Vroege, cited above, paragraph 29, Fisscher, paragraph 26, and Dietz, paragraph 20).

20 IL Y A LIEU , A CET EGARD , DE SOULIGNER QUE , COMME IL RESSORT DU DOSSIER , LE REGIME DE PENSIONS D ' ENTREPRISE EN CAUSE DANS LE LITIGE PRINCIPAL , MEME S ' IL A ETE ADOPTE EN CONFORMITE AVEC LES DISPOSITIONS PREVUES PAR LE LEGISLATEUR ALLEMAND QUANT AUX REGIMES DU MEME TYPE , TROUVE SA SOURCE DANS UN ACCORD , INTERVENU ENTRE BILKA ET LE CONSEIL D ' ENTREPRISE REPRESENTANT SES EMPLOYES , AYANT POUR EFFET DE COMPLETER LES PRESTATIONS SOCIALES DUES EN VERTU DE LA LEGISLATION NATIONALE D ' APPLICATION GENERALE PAR DES PRESTATIONS DONT LE FINANCEMENT EST SUPPORTE UNIQUEMENT PAR L ' EMPLOYEUR .

43. It is, however, clear from that glossary that, under the supervision of the Commission, the Member States had in various ways defined the documents which they considered could be served pursuant to that regulation (see judgment in Roda Golf & Beach Resort , C‑14/08, EU:C:2009:395, paragraph 47) including in the category of extrajudicial documents, as the Advocate General has stated in point 36 of his Opinion, not only documents emanating from a public authority or official, but also private documents of specific importance within a given legal system.

51. Consequently, the concept of the value of sales referred to in point 13 of those Guidelines encompasses the sales made on the market concerned by the infringement in the EEA, and it is not necessary to determine whether those sales were genuinely affected by that infringement, since the proportion of the overall turnover deriving from the sale of goods in respect of which the infringement was committed is best able to reflect the economic importance of that infringement (see, to that effect, judgments in Team Relocations and Others v Commission , C‑444/11 P, EU:C:2013:464, paragraphs 75 to 78; Guardian Industries and Guardian Europe v Commission , C‑580/12 P, EU:C:2014:2363, paragraphs 57 to 59; Dole Food and Dole Fresh Fruit Europe v Commission , C‑286/13 P, EU:C:2015:184, paragraphs 148 and 149; and LG Display and LG Display Taiwan v Commission , C‑227/14 P, EU:C:2015:258, paragraphs 53 to 58 and 64).

148. It follows that point 13 of the Guidelines pursues the objective of adopting as the starting point for the calculation of the fine to be imposed on an undertaking an amount which reflects the economic importance of the infringement and the size of the undertaking’s contribution to it. Consequently, while the concept of the value of sales referred to in point 13 of those guidelines cannot, admittedly, extend to encompassing sales made by the undertaking in question which do not fall, directly or indirectly, within the scope of the alleged cartel, it would none the less be contrary to the goal pursued by that provision if that concept were understood as applying only to turnover achieved by the sales in respect of which it is established that they were actually affected by that cartel (judgment in Team Relocations and Others v Commission , C‑444/11 P, EU:C:2013:464, paragraph 76).

62. What is more, it is settled case-law that the purpose of the pre-litigation procedure is to give the Member State concerned an opportunity, on the one hand, to comply with its obligations under European Union law and, on the other, to avail itself of its right to defend itself against the objections formulated by the Commission (see, inter alia, Case C‑147/03 Commission v Austria [2005] ECR I-5969, paragraph 22, and Case C-522/09 Commission v Romania [2011] ECR I-2963, paragraph 15).

46. That limit must be interpreted in accordance with the purpose of the Framework Agreement and such that it does not render meaningless the principle that contracts of indefinite duration are the general form of employment relationship (see, to that effect, Adeneler and Others , paragraph 73).

73. Thus, to admit that a national provision may, automatically and without further precision, justify successive fixed-term employment contracts would effectively have no regard to the aim of the Framework Agreement, which is to protect workers against instability of employment, and render meaningless the principle that contracts of indefinite duration are the general form of employment relationship.

21. In any event, in circumstances such as those of the main proceedings, the restriction referred to cannot be justified by the need, which the Court has held to be lawful, for the balanced allocation of the power to impose taxes between Member States (see, inter alia, Case C‑446/03 Marks & Spencer [2005] ECR I‑10837, paragraphs 45, 46 and 51).

95 Furthermore, in the case of supervisory measures adopted at the national level in order to implement Community rules regarding the common agricultural policy, the national authorities must act with the same degree of care as they exercise in implementing the corresponding national legislation, in order to prevent any erosion of the effectiveness of Community law (Case C-2/93 Exportslachterijen van Oordegem, cited above, paragraph 19).

19 It should also be emphasized that in the case of supervisory measures adopted at the national level in order to implement Community rules regarding the common agricultural policy the national authorities must act with the same degree of care as they exercise in implementing the corresponding national legislation, in order to prevent any erosion of the effectiveness of Community law (BayWa, cited above, paragraph 22).

8 After a complaint brought before the Finanzamt (Tax Office) and an appeal to the Finanzgericht (Finance Court) were dismissed, FG-Linien appealed on a point of law to the Bundesfinanzhof.

78. As to whether such legislation may nevertheless comply with Community law, it is settled case-law that obstacles to intra-Community trade resulting from disparities between provisions of national law must be accepted in so far as such provisions are applicable to domestic and imported products alike and may be justified as being necessary in order to satisfy overriding requirements relating inter alia to consumer protection. However, in order to be permissible, such provisions must be proportionate to the objective pursued and that objective must not be capable of being achieved by measures which are less restrictive of intra-Community trade (see, inter alia , Mars , paragraph 15; Case C-313/94 Graffione [1996] ECR I-6039, paragraph 17; Ruwet , paragraph 50; and Guimont , paragraph 27).

17 It is also settled law that obstacles to intra-Community trade resulting from disparities between provisions of national law must be accepted in so far as such provisions are applicable to domestic and imported products without distinction and may be justified as being necessary in order to satisfy overriding requirements relating inter alia to consumer protection or fair trading. However, in order to be permissible, such provisions must be proportionate to the objective pursued and that objective must not be capable of being achieved by measures which are less restrictive of intra-Community trade (see Case 120/78 Rewe-Zentral v Bundesmonopolverwaltung fuer Branntwein ("Cassis de Dijon") [1979] ECR 649, paragraph 8; Case C-238/89 Pall v Dalhausen [1990] ECR I-4827, paragraph 12; Case 126/91 Schutzverband gegen Unwesen in der Wirtschaft v Yves Rocher [1993] ECR I-2361, paragraph 12; and Case C-470/93 Verein gegen Unwesen in Handel und Gewerbe Koeln v Mars [1995] ECR I-1923, paragraph 15).

58. In any event the concepts of " working time" and " rest period" within the meaning of Directive 93/104 may not be interpreted in accordance with the requirements of the various legislations of the Member States but constitute concepts of Community law which must be defined in accordance with objective characteristics by reference to the scheme and purpose of that directive, as the Court did at paragraphs 48 to 50 of the judgment in Simap . Only such an autonomous interpretation is capable of securing for that directive full efficacy and uniform application of those concepts in all the Member States.

21. Thus, a sign which, in relation to the goods or services in respect of which its registration as a mark is applied for, has descriptive character for the purposes of Article 3(1)(c) of the directive is therefore necessarily devoid of any distinctive character as regards those goods or services, within the meaning of Article 3(1)(b) of that directive (see Koninklijke KPN Nederland , paragraph 86, and Case C‑51/10 P Agencja Wydawnicza Technopol v OHIM [2011] ECR I‑0000, paragraph 33 and the case-law cited).

86. In particular, a word mark which is descriptive of characteristics of goods or services for the purposes of Article 3(1)(c) of the Directive is, on that account, necessarily devoid of any distinctive character with regard to the same goods or services within the meaning of Article 3(1)(b) of the Directive. A mark may none the less be devoid of any distinctive character in relation to goods or services for reasons other than the fact that it may be descriptive.

47 As the principle of equal treatment is a concept of EU law (judgment of 6 October 2011, Graf and Engel, C‑506/10, EU:C:2011:643, paragraph 26), in order to ascertain whether there may be an instance of unequal treatment in the context of the Agreement on free movement of persons, it is necessary, as is apparent from paragraphs 36 above, to refer, by analogy, to the principles established by the Court’s case-law cited in paragraph 46 above.

40. It has already been held, with respect to the posting of workers who are nationals of non-Member States by a service provider established in the Community, that national provisions which make the provision of services within national territory by an undertaking established in another Member State subject to the issue of an administrative authorisation constitute a restriction on the freedom to provide services within the meaning of Article 49 EC (see Vander Elst , paragraph 15, and Commission v Luxembourg , paragraph 24).

24. It has already been held with respect to the deployment of workers who are nationals of non-member countries by a service-providing undertaking established in the Community that national legislation which makes the provision of services within national territory by an undertaking established in another Member State subject to the issue of an administrative permit constitutes a restriction on the freedom to provide services within the meaning of Article 49 EC (see Case C‑43/93 Vander Elst [1994] ECR I-3803, paragraph 15).

39. Recourse to the public policy rule in Article 23(a) of that regulation should thus come into consideration only where, taking into account the best interests of the child, recognition of the judgment given in another Member State would be at variance to an unacceptable degree with the legal order of the State in which recognition is sought, in that it would infringe a fundamental principle. In order to comply with the prohibition laid down in Article 26 of the regulation of any review of the substance of a judgment given in another Member State, the infringement would have to constitute a manifest breach, having regard to the best interests of the child, of a rule of law regarded as essential in the legal order of the State in which recognition is sought or of a right recognised as being fundamental within that legal order (see, by analogy, judgment in Diageo Brands , C‑681/13, EU:C:2015:471, paragraph 44).

10 As regards the relationship between Article 9(1) and Article 9(2), the Court has already held that Article 9(2) sets out a number of specific instances of places where certain services are deemed to be supplied, whereas Article 9(1) lays down the general rule on the matter. The object of those provisions is to avoid, first, conflicts of jurisdiction, which may result in double taxation, and, secondly, non-taxation, as Article 9(3) indicates, albeit only as regards specific situations (Case 168/84 Berkholz v Finanzamt Hamburg-Mitte-Altstadt [1985] ECR 2251, paragraph 14, and Case C-327/94 Dudda [1996] ECR I-4595, paragraph 20).

20 As regards the relationship between Article 9(1) and Article 9(2), the Court has already held that Article 9(2) sets out a number of specific instances of places where certain services are deemed to be supplied, whereas Article 9(1) lays down the general rule on the matter. The object of those provisions is to avoid, first, conflicts of jurisdiction, which may result in double taxation, and, secondly, non-taxation, as Article 9(3) indicates, albeit only as regards specific situations (Case 168/84 Berkholz v Finanzamt Hamburg-Mitte-Altstadt [1985] ECR 2251, paragraph 14).

84 In that context, it must be added that the origin of the shareholders of the companies at issue in the main proceedings does not affect the right of those companies to rely on freedom of establishment. In that regard, it is clear from the Court’s case-law that it does not follow from any provision of EU law that the origin of the shareholders, be they natural or legal persons, of companies resident in the European Union affects the right of those companies to rely on that freedom (see, to that effect, judgment of 7 September 2017, Eqiom and Enka, C‑6/16, EU:C:2017:641, paragraph 48 and the case-law cited). In the cases in the main proceedings, it is common ground that the parent companies in question are companies established in the European Union. Accordingly, those companies may rely on that freedom.

74. 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 the 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 the 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.

42 Furthermore, it should be noted that, quite apart from the applicable rules of professional liability, the rules of professional conduct applicable to lawyers generally entail, like Article 3.1.3 of the Code of Professional Conduct adopted by the Council of the Bars and Law Societies of the European Union (CCBE), an obligation, breach of which may incur disciplinary sanctions, not to handle matters which the professionals concerned know or ought to know they are not competent to handle.

55 The same is true of the argument that the General Court found that PROAS had relied on the characteristic elements of the Spanish market by way of mitigating circumstances and not as factors illustrating the lesser seriousness of the infringement at issue. In fact, since the General Court carried out a review of PROAS’ claims relating to the characteristics of the Spanish market in the context of the assessment of mitigating circumstances, the General Court cannot, in any event, be criticised for not having examined them in the assessment of the seriousness of the infringement (see judgment of 5 December 2013 in Solvay Solexis v Commission, C‑449/11 P, not published, EU:C:2013:802, paragraphs 78 and 79).

34. Certain circumstances may constitute evidence that the holder has discarded a substance or object, or intends or is required to discard it, within the meaning of Article 1(a) of the directive ( ARCO Chemie Nederland and Others , paragraph 83). That is the case in particular where a substance is a production or consumption residue, that is to say, a product which it was not, as such, sought to produce (see, to this effect, ARCO Chemie Nederland and Others , paragraph 84, and Niselli , paragraph 43).

83 On the other hand, certain circumstances may constitute evidence that the holder has discarded the substance or intends or is required to discard it within the meaning of Article 1(a) of the directive.

103. It is true that in Directives 92/100 and 2006/115 the European Union legislature used the term ‘remuneration’ instead of the term ‘compensation’ employed in Directive 2001/29. However, that concept of ‘remuneration’ is also designed to establish recompense for authors, since it arises in order to compensate for harm to the latter (see, to this effect, Case C‑271/10 VEWA [2011] ECR I‑5815, paragraph 29).

71. As for vitamins A, D and K, even if they are liposoluble vitamins, which it is accepted pose a higher risk of harmfulness than water-soluble vitamins as a rule (see Sandoz , paragraph 11, and Van Bennekom , paragraph 36), the Austrian Government merely calls to mind the risk of a dangerous overdose, without stating from what quantities there is uncertainty about the harmlessness of intake of those vitamins or the nature of the risks taken if those quantities are exceeded, and without citing the scientific opinions on which it relies.

11 IT APPEARS FROM THE FILE THAT VITAMINS ARE NOT IN THEMSELVES HARMFUL SUBSTANCES BUT ON THE CONTRARY ARE RECOGNIZED BY MODERN SCIENCE AS NECESSARY FOR THE HUMAN ORGANISM . NEVERTHELESS EXCESSIVE CONSUMPTION OF THEM OVER A PROLONGED PERIOD MAY HAVE HARMFUL EFFECTS , THE EXTENT OF WHICH VARIES ACCORDING TO THE TYPE OF VITAMIN : THERE IS GENERALLY A GREATER RISK WITH VITAMINS SOLUBLE IN FAT THAN WITH THOSE SOLUBLE IN WATER . ACCORDING TO THE OBSERVATIONS SUBMITTED TO THE COURT , HOWEVER , SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH DOES NOT APPEAR TO BE SUFFICIENTLY ADVANCED TO BE ABLE TO DETERMINE WITH CERTAINTY THE CRITICAL QUANTITIES AND THE PRECISE EFFECTS .

43. In particular, the compensation cannot exceed what is necessary to cover all or part of the costs incurred in the discharge of public service obligations, taking into account the relevant receipts and a reasonable profit for discharging those obligations (see, to that effect, Ferring , paragraph 32; Altmark Trans and Regierungspräsidium Magdeburg , paragraph 92; Servizi Ausiliari Dottori Commercialisti , paragraph 66; and Essent Netwerk Noord and Others , paragraph 84).

43. Or, dans le cadre du présent recours, qui a pour objet un manquement à l’exécution d’une décision en matière d’aides d’État et qui n’a pas été déférée devant la Cour par l’État membre qui en est destinataire, ce dernier ne saurait être fondé à contester la légalité d’une telle décision (voir arrêt du 12 mai 2005, Commission/Grèce, C‑415/03, Rec. p. I‑3875, point 38 et jurisprudence citée).

38. As for the argument of the Hellenic Republic in relation to the absence of a financial benefit as a result of the forbearance which a private investor would have shown towards the persistent non-payment of certain sums, it must be noted that that argument calls into question the lawfulness of Decision 2003/372. In the context of the present action, which concerns the failure to implement a decision on State aid which has not been referred to the Court by the Member State to which it is addressed, the latter is not justified in challenging the lawfulness of such a decision (see, in particular, Case C-404/97 Commission v Portugal [2000] ECR I-4897, paragraph 34, and Case C-261/99 Commission v France [2001] ECR I‑2537, paragraph 18). Consequently, the classification in Decision 2003/372 of the persistent non-payment of the various debts of Olympic Airways as State aid cannot be called into question in the context of the present proceedings.

52. However, in exercising their discretion relating to the protection of public health, the Member States must comply with the principle of proportionality. The means which they choose must therefore be confined to what is actually necessary to ensure the safeguarding of public health or to satisfy overriding requirements regarding, for example, consumer protection, and they must be proportional to the objective thus pursued, which could not have been attained by measures less restrictive of intra-Community trade (see Sandoz , paragraph 18, and Commission v Denmark , paragraph 45).

29. Moreover, preventing possible tax evasion, avoidance and abuse is an objective recognised and encouraged by the Sixth Directive ( Halifax , paragraph 71).

71. Preventing possible tax evasion, avoidance and abuse is an objective recognised and encouraged by the Sixth Directive (see Joined Cases C-487/01 and C-7/02 Gemeente Leusden and Holin Groep [2004] ECR I-5337, paragraph 76).

17 On the basis of those various provisions, the levy of the additional amount was introduced by Regulation No 3249/80 as a protective measure. Whilst that measure was not among those expressly envisaged by Regulation No 521/77, it has nevertheless been recognized as lawful by the Court (see the judgment in Case 345/82 Wuensche Handelsgesellschaft v Federal Republic of Germany [1984] ECR 1995, paragraph 24).

44. A national measure which reserves maritime transport services in the Vigo estuary to a single undertaking by means of an administrative concession for a duration of 20 years, renewable for a period of 10 years, is liable to impede or even prohibit the provision of those services by undertakings in other Member States and therefore constitutes a restriction on freedom to provide services. The same is true of the selection criterion relating to experience in maritime transport in the Vigo estuary (see, to that effect, Analir and Others , paragraph 22, and Commission v Greece , paragraph 30).

30. A national measure which requires from Community ships entered in a second or international register a certificate issued by the competent authority of the flag State declaring that that ship is authorised to provide cabotage services is liable to impede or render less attractive the provision of those services and therefore constitutes a restriction on the freedom to provide them (see, to that effect, Analir , cited above, paragraph 22).

18. Enfin, la Commission fait valoir qu’il ressort de la jurisprudence de la Cour, et notamment de l’arrêt Commission/Irlande (C‑55/12, EU:C:2013:274, point 45), qu’un État membre ne saurait se prévaloir de dispositions, de pratiques ou de situations de son ordre juridique interne pour justifier l’inobservation des obligations résultant du droit de l’Union et que la procédure visée à l’article 258 TFUE repose sur la constatation objective du non-respect par un État membre des obligations que lui imposent les traités ou un acte de droit dérivé.

49 As regards that requirement, the Court has repeatedly held that it implies that the purpose of granting a delegated power is to achieve the adoption of rules coming within the regulatory framework as defined by the basic legislative act (judgments of 18 March 2014, Commission v Parliament and Council, C‑427/12, EU:C:2014:170, paragraph 38; of 16 July 2015, Commission v Parliament and Council, C‑88/14, EU:C:2015:499, paragraph 29; and of 17 March 2016, Parliament v Commission, C‑286/14, EU:C:2016:183, paragraph 30). The Court’s case-law requires in particular that the definition of the power conferred is sufficiently precise, in that it must indicate clearly the limits of the power and must enable the Commission’s use of the power to be reviewed by reference to objective criteria fixed by the EU legislature (see, to that effect, judgments of 5 July 1988, Central-Import Münster, 291/86, EU:C:1988:361, paragraph 13, and of 12 July 2005, Alliance for Natural Health and Others, C‑154/04 and C‑155/04, EU:C:2005:449, paragraph 90).

38. When the EU legislature confers, in a legislative act, a delegated power on the Commission pursuant to Article 290(1) TFEU, the Commission is called on to adopt rules which supplement or amend certain non-essential elements of that act. In accordance with the second subparagraph of Article 290(1) TFEU, the objectives, content, scope and duration of the delegation of power must be explicitly defined in the legislative act granting such a delegation. That requirement implies that the purpose of granting a delegated power is to achieve the adoption of rules coming within the regulatory framework as defined by the basic legislative act.

192. As the Court stated in Konle , any national measure adopted after a date laid down in that way is not, by that fact alone, automatically excluded from the derogation laid down in the Community measure in question. If the provision is, in substance, identical to the previous legislation or is limited to reducing or eliminating an obstacle to the exercise of Community rights and freedoms in the earlier legislation, it will be covered by the derogation. By contrast, legislation based on an approach which is different from that of the previous law and establishes new procedures cannot be regarded as legislation existing at the date set down by the Community measure in question (see Konle , paragraphs 52 and 53).

16 Under Article 33(1)(d) of Regulation No 2038/1999, the average loss is equal to the difference between the total amount of refunds and the total amount of levies on the total tonnage of the export obligations to be fulfilled during the marketing year concerned (see, to that effect, judgments of 8 May 2008, Zuckerfabrik Jülich and Others, C‑5/06 and C‑23/06 to C‑36/06, EU:C:2008:260, paragraph 46, and of 27 September 2012, Zuckerfabrik Jülich and Others, C‑113/10, C‑147/10 and C‑234/10, EU:C:2012:591, paragraph 39).

39. Pursuant to Article 15(1)(d) of the basic regulation, the average loss is equal to the difference between the total amount of refunds and the total amount of levies on the total tonnage of export obligations to be fulfilled during the marketing year concerned. The estimate of the total loss is, according to Article 15(1)(e) of that regulation, calculated by multiplying the exportable surplus by the average loss.

35. That being so, it must also be borne in mind that the prevention of tax evasion, avoidance and abuse is an objective recognised and encouraged by Directive 2006/112 (see, inter alia, Halifax and Others , paragraph 71; Kittel and Recolta Recycling , paragraph 54; Case C-285/09 R [2010] ECR I-12605, paragraph 36; Case C-504/10 Tanoarch [2011] ECR I-10853, paragraph 50; and Mahagében and Dávid , paragraph 41).

44. Articles 87(3)(c) and 88 EC expressly state that the Commission ‘may’ consider aid covered by the first of those two provisions to be compatible with the common market. Accordingly, whilst the Commission must always determine whether State aid subject to review by it is compatible with the common market, even if that aid has not been notified to it (see Case C-301/87 France v Commission (the ‘ Boussac Saint Frères ’ case) [1990] ECR I-307, paragraphs 15 to 24), it is not bound to declare such aid compatible with the common market (see Case C-409/00 Spain v Commission , cited above, paragraph 94).

24 With regard to the present case, it is not disputed that the Commission did examine whether or not the aid was compatible with the common market, even though it did so as a matter of secondary importance . That examination is therefore capable of forming the subject of the present proceedings . B - Infringement of the procedural rules

39. The fixing of that period at two months would not appear liable to render practically impossible or excessively difficult the exercise of rights conferred by European Union law.

30 On that point, it must be borne in mind that Directive 64/427 was intended to make it easier to attain freedom of establishment and freedom to provide services in a broad range of industrial and small trade activities in the manufacturing and processing industries, pending harmonisation of conditions for taking up those activities in the different Member States, which is an essential prerequisite for complete liberalisation in that field (Joined Cases C-193/97 and C-194/97 De Castro Freitas and Escallier [1998] ECR I-6747, paragraph 19).

19 First, it must be borne in mind that the Directive is intended to make it easier to attain freedom of establishment and freedom to provide services in a broad range of industrial and small craft activities in the manufacturing and processing industries, pending harmonisation of conditions for taking up those activities in the different Member States, which is an essential prerequisite for complete liberalisation in that field.

54. In the field of electronic communications, recital 38 in the preamble to the Framework Direct ive states that measures that could affect trade between Member States comprise measures that have a significant impact on operators or users in other Member States, that is to say, inter alia, measures which affect prices for users in other Member States, measures which affect the ability of an undertaking established in another Member State to provide an electronic communications service, in particular measures which affect the ability to offer services on a transnational basis, and, lastly, measures which affect market structure or access, leading to repercussions for undertakings in other Member States.

44. Accordingly, provided that the legal situation arising from the national transposition measures is sufficiently precise and clear and that the persons concerned are put in a position to know the full extent of their rights and obligations, transposition of a directive into national law does not necessarily require legislative action in each Member State. Likewise, as noted by the Advocate General in point 62 of her Opinion, the transposition of a directive may, depending on its content, be achieved through a general legal context, so that a formal and express re-enactment of the provisions of the directive in specific national provisions is not necessary (see Commission v Italy , paragraph 51, and Case C‑428/04 Commission v Austria [2006] ECR I‑3325, paragraph 99).

51. While it is therefore essential that the legal situation resulting from national implementing measures is sufficiently precise and clear to enable the individuals concerned to know the extent of their rights and obligations, it is none the less the case that, according to the very words of the third paragraph of Article 249 EC, Member States may choose the form and methods for implementing directives which best ensure the result to be achieved by the directives, and that provision shows that the transposition of a directive into national law does not necessarily require legislative action in each Member State. The Court has thus repeatedly held that it is not always necessary formally to enact the requirements of a directive in a specific express legal provision, since the general legal context may be sufficient for implementation of a directive, depending on its content. In particular, the existence of general principles of constitutional or administrative law may render superfluous transposition by specific legislative or regulatory measures provided, however, that those principles actually ensure the full application of the directive by the national authorities and that, where the relevant provision of the directive seeks to create rights for individuals, the legal situation arising from those principles is sufficiently precise and clear and that the persons concerned are put in a position to know the full extent of their rights and, where appropriate, to be able to rely on them before the national courts (see, inter alia, Case 29/84 Commission v Germany [1985] ECR 1661, paragraphs 22 and 23, and Case C-233/00 Commission v France , cited above, paragraph 76).

23. In relation to direct taxes, the situations of residents and non‑residents in a State are generally not comparable, because the income received in the territory of a State by a non-resident is in most cases only a part of his total income, which is concentrated at his place of residence, and because a non-resident’s personal ability to pay tax, determined by reference to his aggregate income and his personal and family circumstances, is easier to assess at the place where his personal and financial interests are centred, which in general is the place where he has his usual abode (Case C‑169/03 Wallentin [2004] ECR I‑6443, paragraph 15, and the case-law cited).

29. According to settled case‑law, the principles laid down in Articles 39 EC to 41 EC must be extended, so far as possible, to Turkish nationals who enjoy the rights conferred by Decision No 1/80 (see, inter alia, Case C‑434/93 Bozkurt [1995] ECR I‑1475, paragraphs 14, 19 and 20, and Case C‑467/02 Cetinkaya [2004] ECR I‑10895, paragraph 42).

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.

74. Nevertheless, contrary to the assertions made by API, it is clear from the case-law of the Court of Justice that the institution concerned may base its decisions in that regard on general presumptions which apply to certain categories of document, as considerations of a generally similar kind are likely to apply to applications for disclosure which relate to documents of the same nature (see Sweden and Turco v Council , paragraph 50, and Commission v Technische Glaswerke Ilmenau , paragraph 54).

33. The Court has earlier held that it does not follow from its case-law that the operation of any commercial port constitutes the operation of a service of general economic interest (Case C-242/95 GT-Link [1997] ECR I-4449, paragraph 52). Such activity does not therefore automatically involve the performance of public-service duties.

52 It does not follow, however, that the operation of any commercial port constitutes the operation of a service of general economic interest or, in particular, that all the services provided in such a port amount to such a task.

21. It has been consistently held that, in applying national law, in particular national legislative provisions which were specially introduced in order to transpose a directive, the national court is required to interpret its national law, so far as possible, in the light of the wording and the purpose of the directive (see, in particular, Case 14/83 Von Colson and Kamann [1984] ECR 1891, paragraph 26; Case 79/83 Harz [1984] ECR 1921, paragraph 26, and Case C-185/97 Coote [1998] ECR I-5199, paragraph 18).

28 The national courts, whose task it is to apply the provisions of Community law in areas within their jurisdiction, must ensure that they take full effect (see, inter alia, Case 106/77 Simmenthal [1978] ECR 629, paragraph 16, Case C-213/89 Factortame and Others [1990] ECR I-2433, paragraph 19, and Case C-453/99 Courage and Crehan [2001] ECR I-6297, paragraph 25).

16THIS CONSEQUENCE ALSO CONCERNS ANY NATIONAL COURT WHOSE TASK IT IS AS AN ORGAN OF A MEMBER STATE TO PROTECT , IN A CASE WITHIN ITS JURISDICTION , THE RIGHTS CONFERRED UPON INDIVIDUALS BY COMMUNITY LAW .

9 IT SHOULD BE NOTED, AS THE COURT HELD IN ITS JUDGMENTS OF 4 DECEMBER 1986 IN CASE 71/85 FNV (( 1986 )) ECR AND OF 24 MARCH 1987 IN CASE 286/85 MC DERMOTT AND COTTER (( 1987 )) ECR , THAT STANDING BY ITSELF, AND IN THE LIGHT OF THE OBJECTIVE AND CONTENTS OF THE DIRECTIVE, ARTICLE 4*(1 ) IS SUFFICIENTLY PRECISE TO BE RELIED UPON IN LEGAL PROCEEDINGS AND APPLIED BY A COURT . MOREOVER, WHILST ARTICLE 5 OF THE DIRECTIVE LEAVES TO THE MEMBER STATES A DISCRETION WITH REGARD TO METHODS, IT PRESCRIBES THE RESULT WHICH THOSE METHODS MUST ACHIEVE, NAMELY THE ABOLITION OF ANY PROVISIONS CONTRARY TO THE PRINCIPLE OF EQUAL TREATMENT .

38. Consequently, the provisions of the Treaty relating to freedom of movement of persons preclude any measure which, albeit applicable without discrimination on grounds of nationality, is liable to hinder or render less attractive the exercise by European Union nationals of the fundamental freedoms guaranteed by the Treaty (see, to that effect, judgments in Government of the French Community and Walloon Government , C‑212/06, EU:C:2008:178, paragraph 45, and Casteels , C‑379/09, EU:C:2011:131, paragraph 22).

22. Consequently, Article 45 TFEU militates against any measure which, even though applicable without discrimination on grounds of nationality, is capable of hindering or rendering less attractive the exercise by European Union nationals of the fundamental freedoms guaranteed by the Treaty (see Gouvernement de la Communauté française and Gouvernement wallon , paragraph 45 and the case-law cited).

66. According to settled case-law, the obligation to state reasons for a decision adversely affecting a person is intended to enable the Court to review the legality of the decision and to provide the person concerned with details sufficient to enable him to ascertain whether the decision is well founded or whether it is vitiated by an error which will allow its legality to be contested. It follows that the statement of reasons must in principle be notified to the person concerned at the same time as the decision adversely affecting him and that a failure to state the reasons cannot be remedied by the fact that the person concerned learns the reasons for the decision during the proceedings before the Court ( Michel v Parliament , paragraph 22).

40. For those reasons, the Court has thus already held that Article 25(1) of the Second Directive precludes the application of rules which, being designed to ensure the reorganization and continued trading of undertakings that are of particular importance to the national economy and are in an exceptional situation by reason of their debt burden, allow an increase in capital to be decided upon by administrative measure, without any resolution being passed by the general meeting (judgments in Karella and Karellas , paragraph 31, Syndesmos Melon tis Eleftheras Evangelikis Ekklisias and Others, paragraph 37, and Joined Cases C-134/91 and C-135/91 Kerafina-Keramische und Finanz-Holding and Vioktimatiki [1992] ECR I-5699, paragraph 18, hereinafter " the Karella and Syndesmos Melon line of cases" ).

18 Accordingly, it is sufficient to refer to the grounds of those two judgments, and in particular to the operative part of the judgment in Karella and Karellas, according to which Article 25(1) of the Second Council Directive may be relied upon by individuals against the public authorities before national courts, and Article 25 in conjunction with Article 41(1) of the Second Directive must be interpreted as meaning that they preclude national rules which, in order to ensure the survival and continued operation of undertakings which are of particular economic and social importance for society as a whole and are in exceptional circumstances by reason of their excessive debt burden, provide for the adoption by administrative act of a decision to increase the company capital, without prejudice to the right of pre-emption of the original shareholders when the new shares are issued. The third question

25 It must be borne in mind in that respect that the fact that a worker is required to pay, in respect of the same earned income, social charges arising under the legislation of several States, although he can be an insured person only in respect of the legislation of one State, means that the worker must pay contributions twice over, contrary to the provisions of Article 13 of Regulation No 1408/71 (see in particular Case 102/76 Perenboom [1977] ECR 815, paragraph 13, and Case C-60/93 Aldewereld [1994] ECR I-2991, paragraph 26).

59. As regards possible justifications for such unequal treatment, it is settled law that grounds of an economic nature, such as the objective of ensuring continuity, financial stability or a proper return on past investments for operators who obtained licences under the 1999 tendering procedure, cannot be accepted as overriding reasons in the public interest, justifying a restriction of a fundamental freedom guaranteed by the Treaty ( Commission v Italy , paragraph 35 and the case‑law cited, and Case C‑384/08 Attanasio Group [2010] ECR I‑2055, paragraphs 53 to 56).

35. In addition, as regards the grounds of an economic nature put forward by the Italian Government, such as the need to ensure continuity, financial stability and a proper return on past investments for licence holders, suffice it to point out that those cannot be accepted as overriding reasons in the general interest justifying a restriction of a fundamental freedom guaranteed by the Treaty (see, to that effect, Case C‑35/98 Verkooijen [2000] ECR I‑4071, paragraph 48, and Case C‑388/01 Commission v Italie [2003] ECR I‑721, paragraph 22).

36 Secondly, Article 10(1) must be interpreted in the light of the general principle of the right of undertakings to the protection of their business secrets, a principle which finds expression in Article 214 of the Treaty and various provisions of Regulation No 17, such as Articles 19(3), 20(2) and 21(2) (see the judgment in Case 53/85 AKZO Chemie v Commission [1986] ECR 1965, paragraph 28).

82. Thus, the Court has held that if a national law merely encourages or makes it easier for undertakings to engage in autonomous anti-competitive conduct, those undertakings remain subject to Articles 81 EC and 82 EC (Joined Cases 40/73 to 48/73, 50/73, 54/73 to 56/73, 111/73, 113/73 and 114/73 Suiker Unie and Others v Commission [1975] ECR 1663, paragraphs 36 to 73, and CIF , paragraph 56).

57 B - APART FROM THESE CONSIDERATIONS THE SAID REGULATIONS - TOGETHER WITH THE INFLUENCE EXERTED BY THE ITALIAN AUTHORITIES ON THE OPERATIONS OF THE PRODUCERS CONCERNED - WERE IN MANY RESPECTS LIKELY TO BRING ABOUT THE CONCENTRATION OF DEMAND IN ITALY IN THE HANDS OF THE LARGE PRODUCERS AND THE FORMATION OF GROUPS OF PRODUCER-IMPORTERS AND ALSO OF SUPPLIER-EXPORTERS .

En ce qui concerne le contrôle juridictionnel des conditions de la mise en œuvre dudit principe, il y a lieu de reconnaître au législateur de l’Union un large pouvoir d’appréciation dans un domaine tel que celui de l’espèce, qui implique de sa part des choix de nature politique, économique et sociale, et dans lequel il est appelé à effectuer des appréciations complexes (voir arrêt du 17 décembre 2015, Neptune Distribution, C‑157/14, EU:C:2015:823, point 76 et jurisprudence citée).

15. It is settled case-law that the Court of Justice has no jurisdiction to establish the facts or, without exception, to examine the evidence which the General Court accepted in support of those facts. Provided that the evidence has been properly obtained and the general principles of law and the rules of procedure in relation to the burden of proof and the taking of evidence have been observed, it is for the General Court alone to assess the value which should be attached to the evidence produced to it (see Case C-122/01 P T.Port v Commission [2003] ECR I‑4261, paragraph 27, and Case C‑167/06 P Komninou and Others v Commission [2007] ECR I-141, paragraph 40). Save where that evidence has been distorted, its appraisal therefore does not constitute a point of law which is subject, as such, to review by the Court of Justice (see, in particular, Case C-8/95 P New Holland Ford v Commission [1998] ECR I-3175, paragraph 26).

27. It is settled case-law that the Court of Justice has no jurisdiction to establish the facts or, in principle, to examine the evidence which the Court of First Instance accepted in support of those facts. Provided that the evidence has been properly obtained and the general principles of law and the rules of procedure in relation to the burden of proof and the taking of evidence have been observed, it is for the Court of First Instance alone to assess the value which should be attached to the evidence produced to it (Case C-185/95 P Baustahlgewebe v Commission [1998] ECR I-8417, paragraph 24). That appraisal does not therefore constitute, save where the clear sense of the evidence has been distorted, a point of law which is subject as such to review by the Court of Justice (Case C-8/95 P New Holland Ford v Commission [1998] ECR I-3175, paragraph 26, and Joined Cases C-24/01 P and C-25/01 P Glencore and Compagnie Continentale v Commission [2002] ECR I-10119, paragraph 65).

85 With regard to the complaint that the General Court failed to give reasons, in paragraph 120 of the judgment under appeal, for its rejection of Safa Nicu Sepahan’s argument that the letters relating to that project did establish that it was plausible that the reason for the delay in carrying out the project was the adoption of the restrictive measures at issue, it must be noted that the obligation to state reasons established by Article 296 TFEU is an essential procedural requirement which must be distinguished from the question whether the reasoning is well founded, which is concerned with the substantive legality of the measure at issue. The reasoning of a decision consists in a formal statement of the grounds on which that decision is based. If those grounds are vitiated by errors, the latter will affect the substantive legality of the decision, but not the statement of reasons in it, which may be adequate even though it sets out reasons which are incorrect. It follows that objections and arguments intended to establish that a measure is not well founded are irrelevant in the context of a ground of appeal alleging an inadequate statement of reasons or a lack of such a statement (judgment of 18 June 2015, Ipatau v Council, C‑535/14 P, EU:C:2015:407, paragraph 37 and the case-law cited).

58. Moreover, in the analogous context of Article 6 of the ECHR, the Court of Justice has held that it is precisely in deference to that article and to the very purpose of every individual’s right to adversarial proceedings and to a fair hearing within the meaning of that provision that the Court may of its own motion, on a proposal from the Advocate General or at the request of the parties, order that the oral procedure be reopened, in accordance with Article 61 of its Rules of Procedure, if it considers that it lacks sufficient information, or that the case must be dealt with on the basis of an argument which has not been debated between the parties (see the order of 4 February 2000 in Case C‑17/98 Emesa Sugar [2000] ECR I‑665, paragraphs 8, 9 and 18, and Joined Cases C‑270/97 and C‑271/97 Deutsche Post [2000] ECR I‑929, paragraph 30).

30 Also, it is clear from the order of the Court of 4 February 2000 in Case C-17/98 Emesa Sugar v Aruba [2000] ECR I-0000, paragraph 18) that it is precisely in deference to Article 6 of the EHRC and to the very purpose of every individual's right to adversarial proceedings and to a fair hearing within the meaning of that provision that the Court may of its own motion, on a proposal from the Advocate General or at the request of the parties, order that the oral procedure be re-opened, in accordance with Article 61 of its Rules of Procedure, if it considers that it lacks sufficient information, or that the case must be dealt with on the basis of an argument which has not been debated between the parties.

41 Those provisions, which are intended to protect tenderers against arbitrary behaviour on the part of the contracting authority, are thus designed to reinforce the existence, in all Member States, of effective remedies, so as to ensure the effective application of the EU rules on the award of public contracts, in particular where infringements can still be rectified (see, to that effect, judgments of 12 December 2002, Universale-Bau and Others, C‑470/99, EU:C:2002:746, paragraph 71; of 11 September 2014, Fastweb, C‑19/13, EU:C:2014:2194, paragraph 34, and of 12 March 2015, eVigilo, C‑538/13, EU:C:2015:166, paragraph 50).

45 In that regard, it must be observed, as a preliminary point, that, according to settled case-law, in proceedings under Article 169 of the Treaty for failure to fulfil an obligation, it is incumbent on the Commission to prove that the obligation has not been fulfilled and to place before the Court the evidence necessary to enable it to determine whether that is the case (see, inter alia, Case C-96/98 Commission v France [1999] ECR I-8531, paragraph 36).

36 It is settled case-law that, in proceedings under Article 169 of the Treaty for failure to fulfil an obligation, it is incumbent on the Commission to prove that the obligation has not been fulfilled and to place before the Court the information necessary to enable it to determine whether that is so (see, inter alia, Case 96/81 Commission v Netherlands [1982] ECR 1791, paragraph 6, and Case C-166/97 Commission v France, cited above, paragraph 40).

En tout état de cause, étant donné que, eu égard aux constatations précédentes dans l’arrêt attaqué, ce constat n’a été effectué par le Tribunal qu’à titre surabondant pour établir que la Commission était fondée à rejeter la méthode de calcul proposée par le Royaume d’Espagne, cet argument doit être rejeté comme étant inopérant (voir, en ce sens, arrêt du 26 janvier 2017, Masco e.a./Commission, C‑614/13 P, EU:C:2017:63, points 25 et 26 ainsi que jurisprudence citée).

14. It is settled case-law that, in the context of the cooperation between the Court of Justice of the European Union and the national courts provided for by 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 questions submitted by national courts concern the interpretation of Community law, the Court of Justice is bound, in principle, to give a ruling (see, inter alia, Case C‑379/98 PreussenElektra [2001] ECR I‑2099, paragraph 38, and Case C-103/88 Gottwald [2009] ECR I-0000, paragraph 16).

38 It should remembered that it is settled law that in the context of the cooperation between the Court of Justice and the national courts provided for by Article 177 of the Treaty 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 by the national court concern the interpretation of Community law, the Court of Justice is, in principle, bound to give a ruling (see, inter alia, Case C-415/93 Bosman [1995] ECR I-4921, paragraph 59).

33. Moreover, even if certain language versions, such as, in particular, the Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese versions of Article 1(3) of the UCITS Directive, when they designate undertakings for collective investment constituted under the law of contract, as opposed to funds constituted under trust law or under statute, use the same expression as that which appears in Article 13B(d)(6) of the Sixth Directive, that is not the case in other language versions, such as the English, Danish and German versions (see, to that effect, Abbey National , paragraph 55).

42. According to settled case-law, the choice of the legal basis for a Community measure must rest on objective factors amenable to judicial review, which include the aim and content of that measure (see, in particular, Parliament v Council , paragraph 34 and case-law cited).

34. According to settled case‑law, the choice of the legal basis for a Community measure must rest on objective factors amenable to judicial review, which include the aim and content of that measure (see, to that effect, inter alia, Case C‑300/89 Commission v Council (‘Titanium dioxide’) [1991] ECR I-2867, paragraph 10, and Case C‑338/01 Commission v Council [2004] ECR I‑4829, paragraph 54), and not on the legal basis used for the adoption of other Community measures which might, in certain cases, display similar characteristics (see, to that effect, Case 131/86 United Kingdom v Council [1988] ECR 905, paragraph 29, and Case C‑91/05 Commission v Council [2008] ECR I‑0000, paragraph 106). In addition, where the Treaty contains a more specific provision that is capable of constituting the legal basis for the measure in question, the measure must be founded on that provision (see, to that effect, Case C‑338/01 Commission v Council , paragraph 60, and Case C‑533/03 Commission v Council [2006] ECR I‑1025, paragraph 45).

25. It must be remembered with regard to the expression ‘shall be treated as contracts for the carriage of goods’ and the conditions under which another contract may be considered a contract for the carriage of goods that consistent and independent criteria are necessary in order to guarantee the full effectiveness of the Rome Convention in view of the objectives which it pursues (see, by way of analogy, Koelzsch C‑29/10, EU:C:2011:151, paragraph 32 and the case-law cited).

86. As the Portuguese Government points out, the Court has held that national measures which restrict the freedom to provide services, which are applicable without distinction and are justified by overriding reasons relating to the public interest - as is the case here, as is evident from paragraphs 68 and 72 to 75 of this judgment - must, nevertheless, be such as to guarantee the achievement of the intended aim and must not go beyond what is necessary in order to achieve it (Case C-288/89 Collectieve Antennevoorziening Gouda [1991] ECR I-4007, paragraphs 13 to 15, and Läärä and Others , cited above, paragraph 31).

15 Lastly, as the Court has consistently held, the application of national provisions to providers of services established in other Member States must be such as to guarantee the achievement of the intended aim and must not go beyond that which is necessary in order to achieve that objective. In other words, it must not be possible to obtain the same result by less restrictive rules (see, most recently, Case C-154/89 Commission v France, cited above, paragraphs 14 and 15; Case C-180/89 Commission v Italy, cited above, paragraphs 17 and 18; Case C-198/89 Commission v Greece, cited above, paragraphs 18 and 19).

26. In order to interpret Article 33 of the Sixth Directive, it must be set against its legislative background. To that end it is useful to recall at the outset the objectives pursued by the introduction of a common system of value added tax (‘VAT’) (Case C‑475/03 Banca Popolare di Cremona [2006] ECR I‑9373, paragraph 18).

67 According to settled case-law, Article 6(1) of Decision No 1/80 does not make the recognition of the rights it confers on Turkish workers subject to any condition connected with the reason the right to enter, work or reside was initially granted (Kus, paragraphs 21 to 23, Günaydin, paragraph 52, and, by analogy, Case C-355/93 Eroglu v Land Baden-Württemberg [1994] ECR I-5113, paragraph 22).

22 Contrary to the assertions of the German Government, the right to respond to any offer of employment, conferred by the second paragraph of Article 7 of Decision No 1/80 on children of Turkish workers who have completed a course of vocational training in the host country is not subject to any condition concerning the ground on which a right to enter and to stay was originally granted. The fact that that right was not given them with a view to reuniting the family but, for example, for the purposes of study does not, therefore, deprive the child of a Turkish worker who satisfies the conditions of the second paragraph of Article 7 of the enjoyment of the rights conferred thereunder.

30. Article 378(1) of the implementing regulation provides that, without prejudice to the rules on the determination of the place where a customs debt is incurred, laid down in Article 215 of the Customs Code, where a consignment has not been presented at the office of destination and the place of the offence or irregularity cannot be established, such offence or irregularity is deemed to have been committed in the Member State to which the office of departure belongs or in the Member State to which the office of transit at the point of entry into the Community belongs, to which a transit advice note has been given, unless within the period laid down in Article 379(2) of the implementing regulation, proof of the regularity of the transit operation or of the place where the offence or irregularity was actually committed is furnished (Case C-300/03 Honeywell Aerospace [2005] ECR I-689, paragraph 21).

68. It is appropriate to observe, second, that price competition does not constitute the only effective form of competition or that to which absolute priority must in all circumstances be given (Case 26/76 Metro v Commission [1977] ECR 1875, paragraph 21).

21 IT IS TRUE THAT IN SUCH SYSTEMS OF DISTRIBUTION PRICE COMPETITION IS NOT GENERALLY EMPHASIZED EITHER AS AN EXCLUSIVE OR INDEED AS A PRINCIPAL FACTOR . THIS IS PARTICULARLY SO WHEN , AS IN THE PRESENT CASE , ACCESS TO THE DISTRIBUTION NETWORK IS SUBJECT TO CONDITIONS EXCEEDING THE REQUIREMENTS OF AN APPROPRIATE DISTRIBUTION OF THE PRODUCTS . HOWEVER , ALTHOUGH PRICE COMPETITION IS SO IMPORTANT THAT IT CAN NEVER BE ELIMINATED IT DOES NOT CONSTITUTE THE ONLY EFFECTIVE FORM OF COMPETITION OR THAT TO WHICH ABSOLUTE PRIORITY MUST IN ALL CIRCUMSTANCES BE ACCORDED . THE POWERS CONFERRED UPON THE COMMISSION UNDER ARTICLE 85 ( 3 ) SHOW THAT THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE MAINTENANCE OF WORKABLE COMPETITION MAY BE RECONCILED WITH THE SAFEGUARDING OF OBJECTIVES OF A DIFFERENT NATURE AND THAT TO THIS END CERTAIN RESTRICTIONS ON COMPETITION ARE PERMISSIBLE , PROVIDED THAT THEY ARE ESSENTIAL TO THE ATTAINMENT OF THOSE OBJECTIVES AND THAT THEY DO NOT RESULT IN THE ELIMINATION OF COMPETITION FOR A SUBSTANTIAL PART OF THE COMMON MARKET . FOR SPECIALIST WHOLESALERS AND RETAILERS THE DESIRE TO MAINTAIN A CERTAIN PRICE LEVEL , WHICH CORRESPONDS TO THE DESIRE TO PRESERVE , IN THE INTERESTS OF CONSUMERS , THE POSSIBILITY OF THE CONTINUED EXISTENCE OF THIS CHANNEL OF DISTRIBUTION IN CONJUNCTION WITH NEW METHODS OF DISTRIBUTION BASED ON A DIFFERENT TYPE OF COMPETITION POLICY , FORMS ONE OF THE OBJECTIVES WHICH MAY BE PURSUED WITHOUT NECESSARILY FALLING UNDER THE PROHIBITION CONTAINED IN ARTICLE 85 ( 1 ), AND , IF IT DOES FALL THEREUNDER , EITHER WHOLLY OR IN PART , COMING WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF ARTICLE 85 ( 3 ). THIS ARGUMENT IS STRENGTHENED IF , IN ADDITION , SUCH CONDITIONS PROMOTE IMPROVED COMPETITION INASMUCH AS IT RELATES TO FACTORS OTHER THAN PRICES .

30 Although Directive 92/81 allows the Member States a varying degree of latitude in implementing certain of its provisions, individuals may not for that reason be denied the right to rely on any provisions which, owing to their particular subject-matter, are capable of being severed from the general body of provisions and applied as such (see, mutatis mutandis, paragraph 29 of Becker, cited above).

57 Admittedly, as the German Government argues in essence, the taxable value of the gift to a non-resident beneficiary, where he is partially subject to gift tax in Germany, is, in principle, less than that of a resident or non-resident beneficiary who is wholly subject to that tax in that Member State (see, by analogy, the judgment of 17 October 2013 in Welte, C‑181/12, EU:C:2013:662, paragraph 52).

52. Admittedly, as the Belgian and German Governments argue, the taxable value of the inheritance of a non-resident heir, where he is partially subject to inheritance tax in Germany, is ‘in principle’, in the words used by those governments, less than that of a resident or non-resident heir who is wholly subject to that tax in that Member State.

41. It is settled case-law that, in the context of the cooperation between the Court of Justice and the national courts provided for by Article 267 TFEU, it is solely for the national court before which a 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 (Case C‑217/05 Confederación Española de Empresarios de Estaciones de Servicio [2006] ECR I‑11987, paragraph 16, and Case C‑260/07 Pedro IV Servicios [2009] ECR I‑2437, paragraph 28).

54. Secondly, with regard to Article 7 of Council Directive 83/182/EEC of 28 March 1983 on tax exemptions within the Community for certain means of transport temporarily imported into one Member State from another (OJ 1983 L 105, p. 59), which defines the concept of normal residence in terms analogous to those used in Article 6 of Directive 83/183, the Court has already held that the criteria for determining that concept refer both to a person’s occupational and personal ties with a particular place and to the duration of those ties. Consequently, they must be examined in conjunction with each other (see Case C‑297/89 Ryborg [1991] ECR I‑1943, paragraph 19, and Louloudakis , paragraph 51).

19 It must be stated, first, that the criteria laid down in those provisions refer both to a person' s occupational and personal ties with a place and to the duration of those ties and consequently that they must be examined in conjunction with each other. Normal residence must, according to consistent decisions of the Court in other spheres of Community law, be regarded as the place where a person has established his permanent centre of interests (see judgments in Case 13/73 Angenieux [1973] ECR 935, Case 284/87 Schaeflein v Commission [1988] ECR 4475 and Case C-216/89 Reibold [1990] ECR I-4163).

37. Furthermore, it must be noted that international treaty law was codified, in essence, by the Vienna Convention and that the rules contained in that convention apply to an agreement concluded between a State and an international organisation, such as the Euro-Mediterranean Agreement with Egypt, in so far as those rules are an expression of general international customary law (see, by analogy, Brita , paragraphs 40 and 41).

50. Also irrelevant is the fact that the works in question were intended to be used for the activities of KölnMesse, which ultimately has the right to use them in return for monthly payments (see, to that effect, Case C‑220/05 Auroux and Others [2007] ECR I‑385, paragraphs 33, 35 and 42). It should, moreover, be noted in that context that it is apparent from the documents of 8 December 2003 and 14 July 2004 headed ‘letter of intent’ – which have not been contested by the Federal Republic of Germany – that the City of Cologne agreed to accept financial responsibility for the project at issue in the event that, after 2012, KölnMesse is not in a position to pay the rent.

42. Furthermore, the construction of the leisure centre must be regarded as corresponding to the requirements specified by the municipality of Roanne in the agreement. It must be observed, in that regard, that the work referred to by the agreement is the leisure centre as a whole, including the construction of a multiplex cinema, service premises for leisure activities, a car park and, possibly, a hotel. It is clear from a number of clauses in the agreement that, by the construction of the leisure centre as a whole, the municipality of Roanne seeks to reposition and regenerate the area around the railway station.

65 Thus, a Member State which established criteria or thresholds taking account only of the size of projects, without also taking their nature and location into consideration, would exceed the limits of its discretion under Articles 2(1) and 4(2) of the Directive.

61. With regard to an insured person whose travel to another Member State is for reasons relating to tourism or education, for example, and not to any inadequacy in the health service to which he is affiliated, the rules of the Treaty on freedom of movement offer no guarantee that all hospital treatment services which may have to be provided to him unexpectedly in the Member State of stay will be neutral in terms of cost. Given the disparities between one Member State and another in matters of social security cover and the fact that the objective of Regulation No 1408/71 is to coordinate the national laws but not to harmonise them, the conditions attached to a hospital stay in another Member State may, according to the circumstances, be to the insured person’s advantage or disadvantage (see, by analogy, Joined Cases C‑393/99 and C‑394/99 Hervein and Others [2002] ECR I‑2829, paragraphs 50 to 52; Case C‑387/01 Weigel [2004] ECR I‑4981, paragraph 55; and Case C‑392/05 Alevizos [2007] ECR I‑3505, paragraph 76).

52 Thus, the system put in place by Regulation No 1408/71 is merely a system of coordination, concerning inter alia, in Title II of that regulation, the determination of the legislation applicable to employed and self-employed workers who make use, under various circumstances, of their right to freedom of movement. It is inherent in such a system that the level of contributions to be paid in respect of the pursuit of the same activity will differ according to the Member State where that activity is wholly or partly pursued or according to the social security legislation to which that activity is subject (see, to that effect, Case C-68/99 Commission v Germany [2001] ECR I-1865, paragraph 29).

111. As a preliminary point, it must be observed that the seventh ground of appeal concerns whether the General Court was justified in rejecting the third plea put forward at first instance, set out in paragraph 133 et seq. of the application, which alleged an infringement of an essential procedural requirement in relation to the statement of reasons for measures, pursuant to Article 253 EC. The seventh ground of appeal concerns therefore the examination by the General Court of a plea relating to an alleged breach of the obligation to state reasons, which is a plea distinct from those concerning the substantive legality of a measure (see, to that effect, Case C‑367/95 P Commission v Sytraval and Brink’s France [1998] ECR I‑1719, paragraphs 66 and 67).

81 It should also be noted that, according to the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights relating to Article 5(1) of the ECHR, if the execution of a measure depriving a person of liberty is to be in keeping with the objective of protecting the individual from arbitrariness, that means, in particular, that there can be no element of bad faith or deception on the part of the authorities, that execution of the measure is consistent with the purpose of the restrictions permitted by the relevant sub-paragraph of Article 5(1) ECHR and that the deprivation of liberty concerned is proportionate in relation to the ground relied on (see, to that effect, judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in Saadi v. the United Kingdom, no. 13229/03, § 68 to 74, ECHR 2008). As is apparent from the reasoning set out in connection with the examination of its validity in the light of Article 52(1) of the Charter, point (e) of the first subparagraph of Article 8(3) of Directive 2013/33 — whose scope, in view of the context of the provision, is strictly circumscribed — satisfies those requirements.

48. It follows from this that, while Member States essentially retain the freedom to determine the requirements of public policy in accordance with their national needs, which can vary from one Member State to another and from one era to another, the fact still remains that, in the European Union context and particularly when relied upon as a justification for derogating from an obligation designed to ensure that the fundamental rights of third-country nationals are respected when they are removed from the European Union, those requirements must be interpreted strictly, so that their scope cannot be determined unilaterally by each Member State without any control by the institutions of the European Union (see, by analogy, judgment in Gaydarov , C‑430/10, EU:C:2011:749, paragraph 32 and the case-law cited).

43. As the Court has consistently held, that right to deduct is an integral part of the VAT scheme and as a general rule may not be limited. In particular, that right is exercisable immediately in respect of all the taxes charged on transactions relating to inputs (see, inter alia, Case C‑62/93 BP Supergas [1995] ECR I‑1883, paragraph 18; Case C‑392/09 Uszodaépítő [2010] ECR I‑0000, paragraph 34, and Enel Maritsa Iztok 3 , paragraph 32).

22. According to settled case-law, questions on the interpretation of Community law referred by a national court in the factual and legislative context which that court is responsible for defining and the accuracy of which is not a matter for the Court to determine, enjoy a presumption of relevance (see Case C‑300/01 Salzmann [2003] ECR I‑4899, paragraphs 29 and 31). The Court may refuse to rule on a question referred by a national court only where it is quite obvious that the interpretation of Community law that is sought bears no relation to the actual facts of the main action or its purpose, where the problem is hypothetical, or where the Court does not have before it the factual or legal material necessary to give a useful answer to the questions submitted to it (see, inter alia, Case C-379/98 PreussenElektra [2001] ECR I-2099, paragraph 39, and Joined Cases C-94/04 and C-202/04 Cipolla and Others [2006] ECR I-0000, paragraph 25).

31. It follows that, in the factual and legislative context which the national court is responsible for defining and the accuracy of which is not a matter for this Court to determine, the questions submitted by the national court enjoy a presumption of relevance (Case C-355/97 Beck and Bergdorf [1999] ECR I-4977, paragraphs 22 to 24).

58 It is established case-law that the system of rules put in place by Council Directive 85/374/EEC of 25 July 1985 on the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States concerning liability for defective products (OJ 1985 L 210, p. 29) does not preclude the application of other systems of contractual or non-contractual liability based on other grounds, such as fault (see, to that effect, judgment of 10 January 2006, Skov and Bilka, C‑402/03, EU:C:2006:6, paragraph 47).

39. For the purposes of the calculation based on that taxable amount, it is important that the goods whose purchase price is taken into consideration are buildings whose location, size and essential characteristics are similar to those of the building at issue (see, by analogy, judgment in Gemeente Vlaardingen , C‑299/11, EU:C:2012:698, paragraph 30).

30. In that case, those authorities must, in accordance with the rule laid down in Article 11(A)(1)(b) of the Sixth Directive, which has been reproduced in Article 74 of Directive 2006/112, calculate the VAT payable by that taxable person on the basis of a value which is determined at the time when the transformed sports pitches are applied – that is to say, at the time when they are put to use for the purposes of the exempt activity – and which corresponds to the market price for sports pitches of similar location, size and surface to the pitches at issue. In the light of those criteria, the aggregate of the value of the ground on which the pitches concerned lie and the cost of transforming those pitches may constitute an appropriate basis of assessment.

58 Moreover, what the applicant is required to do in the context of a legal challenge is to identify the impugned elements of the contested decision, to formulate grounds of challenge in that regard and to adduce evidence — direct or circumstantial — to demonstrate that its objections are well founded (see, to that effect, judgment of 8 December 2011, KME Germany and Others v Commission , C‑272/09 P, EU:C:2011:810, paragraph 105).

32 According to settled case-law of the Court, the applicable directive is, as a rule, the one in force when the contracting authority chooses the type of procedure to be followed and decides definitively whether it is necessary for a prior call for tenders to be issued for the award of a public contract. Conversely, a directive is not applicable if the period prescribed for its transposition expired after that point in time (judgment of 7 April 2016, Partner Apelski Dariusz, C‑324/14, EU:C:2016:214, paragraph 83 and the case-law cited).

83 In order to answer that question, it must be recalled, as a preliminary point, that, according to settled case-law, the applicable directive is, as a rule, the one in force when the contracting authority chooses the type of procedure to be followed and decides definitively whether it is necessary for a prior call for competition to be issued for the award of a public contract. Conversely, a directive is not applicable if the period prescribed for its transposition expired after that point in time (judgment in Impresa Pizzarotti , C‑213/13, EU;C:2014:2067, paragraph 31 and the case-law cited).

60. It follows from the foregoing that the answer to the questions must be that where a recipient of a supply of goods is a taxable person who did not and could not know that the transaction concerned was connected with a fraud committed by the seller, Article 17 of the Sixth Directive must be interpreted as meaning that it precludes a rule of national law under which the fact that the contract of sale is void – by reason of a civil law provision which renders that contract incurably void as contrary to public policy for unlawful basis of the contract attributable to the seller – causes that taxable person to lose the right to deduct the VAT he has paid. It is irrelevant in this respect whether the fact that the contract is void is due to fraudulent evasion of VAT or to other fraud.

57. In accordance with the principle of equivalence, the procedural rules governing such cases must be no less favourable than those governing purely internal situations (see, to that effect, Palmisani , paragraph 32, and Edis , paragraph 34). Otherwise, there would be a breach of the principle of equal treatment for workers who have exercised their right to freedom of movement and those who have spent their entire working life in a single Member State.

32 As regards the question whether a time-limit of the kind provided for by the Legislative Decree complies with the principle that it must be equivalent to the conditions relating to similar domestic claims, it should be noted that the national court refers more specifically to the procedural rules governing applications for benefits submitted to the guarantee body under the Legislative Decree, actions for obtaining social security benefits (other than pensions) pursuant to Law No 438 of 14 November 1992 and ordinary actions for damages governed by Article 2043 et seq. of the Italian Civil Code.

19. In that regard, the Court has already held that the allocation of a VAT identification number provides proof of the tax status of the taxable person for the purposes of applying VAT and simplifies the inspection of taxable persons with a view to ensuring the correct collection of the tax. Under the transitional arrangements for tax applicable to trade within the European Union, the identification of taxable persons subject to VAT by means of an individual number also facilitates the determination of the Member State in which the final consumption of the goods delivered takes place (see, to that effect, Case C-273/11 Mecsek-Gabona [2012] ECR I-0000, paragraphs 57 and 60, and Case C-587/10 VSTR [2012] ECR I-0000, paragraph 51).

52. The freedom to pursue a trade or business has been recognised by the Court (see, in particular, Case C-44/94 Fishermen’s Organisations and Others [1995] ECR I‑3115, paragraph 55) but, as pointed out by the Commission in its written observations, the national court has not stated that this freedom would be infringed separately from any infringement of the principles of proportionality and non-discrimination, which is examined below. It must therefore be held that this aspect of the question likewise does not require separate examination. Infringement of the principles of non‑discrimination and proportionality

55 With regard to the alleged breach of those principles, it is settled case-law that both the right to property and the freedom to pursue a trade or profession form part of the general principles of Community law. However, those principles are not absolute, but must be viewed in relation to their social function. Consequently, the exercise of the right to property and the freedom to pursue a trade or profession may be restricted, particularly in the context of a common organization of a market, provided that those restrictions in fact correspond to objectives of general interest pursued by the Community and do not constitute in relation to the aim pursued a disproportionate and intolerable interference, impairing the very substance of the rights guaranteed (see the judgment in Case C-280/93 Germany v Council, cited above, paragraph 78).

82. The fact that Mr de Groot was no longer in an employment relationship at the time of the taxation cannot deprive him of certain guaranteed rights which are linked to the status of worker (see, to that effect, Sehrer , paragraph 30, and the case-law cited), since the dispute in the main proceedings is concerned with the direct tax consequences of Mr de Groot's pursuit, as a worker, of activities in other Member States.

43 Although, as the United Kingdom Government has submitted, differences in the excipients used in medicinal products do not normally have any effect on safety, it is not disputed that such effects can exist. It is possible for a medicinal product imported as a parallel import, which contains the same active ingredients and has the same therapeutic effect but does not use the same excipients as the medicinal product which is the subject of the marketing authorisation in the Member State of importation, to show significant differences from the authorised product in terms of safety, given that modifications to the formulation of a medicinal product in respect of the excipients may have an effect on the shelf-life and the bioavailability of the product, for example in relation to the rates at which the medicinal product dissolves or is absorbed (see also, to that effect, Generics (UK), paragraph 32).

32 However, according to the Commission's observations and, in particular, the latest edition of its Rules governing medicinal products in the European Union (p. 235), a medicinal product which satisfies the three criteria referred to in paragraph 25 of this judgment may nevertheless raise questions of safety related to its excipients.

13 In this connection, it is sufficient to observe that, according to the settled case-law of the Court, a Member State may not plead provisions, practices or circumstances existing in its internal legal system in order to justify a failure to comply with the obligations and time-limits laid down in a directive (see, inter alia, Case C-259/94 Commission v Greece [1995] ECR I-1947, at paragraph 5 and Case C-214/96 Commission v Spain [1998] ECR I-7661, at paragraph 18).

6 By judgment of 5 October 1995 in Case C-125/94 Aprile v Amministrazione delle Finanze dello Stato [1995] ECR I-2919, hereinafter `Aprile I') the Court held, first, that Directive 83/643, as amended by Directive 87/53, was not applicable to customs formalities in respect of goods from non-member countries, and, second, that the Member States were not entitled unilaterally to impose charges having equivalent effect in trade with those countries.

19 However, that fact is not such as to render the questions inadmissible since it has been established that some of the goods imported by Aprile, which attracted the charges of which that company seeks reimbursement, originated in non-member countries.

60. The principle that acts of the Community institutions are presumed to be lawful means that they produce legal effects until such time as they are withdrawn, annulled in an action for annulment or declared invalid following a reference for a preliminary ruling or a plea of illegality (Case C‑475/01 Commission v Greece [2004] ECR I‑8923, paragraph 18, and the case-law cited).

78 As the wording of the last-mentioned provision indicates, it permits the lawful detention of a person against whom action is being taken with a view to deportation or extradition. In this regard, although the European Court of Human Rights held in the judgment in Nabil and Others v. Hungary (§ 29) that a deprivation of liberty based on Article 5(1)(f) ECHR will be justified only for as long as deportation or extradition proceedings are in progress and that if such proceedings are not prosecuted with due diligence, the detention will cease to be permissible under that provision, that judgment does not exclude the possibility of a Member State ordering — in such a way that the guarantees provided for by that provision are observed — the detention of a third-country national in respect of whom a return decision accompanied by an entry ban was adopted prior to the lodging of an application for international protection.

42. It is settled case-law that the meaning and scope of terms for which EU 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. When those terms appear in a provision which constitutes a derogation from a principle, they must be read so that that provision can be interpreted strictly. Furthermore, the preamble to a European Union measure may explain the measure’s content (see, to that effect, judgment in Wallentin-Hermann , C‑549/07, EU:C:2008:771, paragraph 17 and the case-law cited).

50 The Court considered that it was not possible to regard as legal, within the meaning of Article 6(1) of Decision No 1/80, periods in which the worker was employed so long as it was not definitively established that during that period the worker had a legal right of residence, since otherwise a judicial decision finally refusing him that right would be rendered nugatory, and he would thus have been enabled to acquire the rights provided for in Article 6(1) during a period in which he did not fulfil the conditions laid down in that provision (Kus, cited above, paragraph 16).

45. It is equally settled case-law of the Court 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 Commission v Spain , C‑168/03, EU:C:2004:525, paragraph 24; Commission v Germany , C‑152/05, EU:C:2008:17, paragraph 15; and Commission v Luxembourg , C‑282/08, EU:C:2009:55, paragraph 10). The Court cannot take account of any subsequent changes (see, inter alia, Commission v Ireland , C‑482/03, EU:C:2004:733, paragraph 11, and Commission v Sweden , C‑185/09, EU:C:2010:59, paragraph 9).

10. D’autre part, 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 (voir, notamment, arrêts du 14 septembre 2004, Commission/Espagne, C‑168/03, Rec. p. I‑8227, point 24, et du 17 janvier 2008, Commission/Allemagne, C‑152/05, Rec. p. I‑39, point 15).

31. Although, by virtue of their wording, the two questions referred to the Court concern solely the direct effect of the first paragraph of Article 3 of Directive 80/987, it is important to recall – as regards the period falling between the date of the entry into force of Directive 2002/74 and the deadline for transposition of that directive – that, where national rules fall within the scope of Community law, and reference is made to the Court for a preliminary ruling, the Court must provide all the interpretative criteria needed by the national court for the purposes of determining whether those rules are compatible with the fundamental rights the observance of which the Court ensures (see, to that effect, Case C-442/00 Rodríguez Caballero [2002] ECR I-11915, paragraph 31 and the case-law cited, and Case C-276/01 Steffensen [2003] ECR I‑3735, paragraph 70).

33. In order to determine whether the conditions for the transfer of an organised economic entity are met, it is necessary to consider all the facts characterising the transaction in question, including in particular the type of undertaking or business concerned, whether or not its tangible assets, such as buildings and movable property, are transferred, the value of its intangible assets at the time of the transfer, whether or not the majority of its employees are taken over by the new employer, whether or not its customers are transferred, the degree of similarity between the activities carried on before and after the transfer, and the period, if any, for which those activities were suspended (see, inter alia, Case C-29/91 Redmond Stichting [1992] ECR I-3189, paragraph 24, and the cases cited above Spijkers , paragraph 13, Süzen , paragraph 14, and Abler and Others , paragraph 33).

13 IN ORDER TO DETERMINE WHETHER THOSE CONDITIONS ARE MET , IT IS NECESSARY TO CONSIDER ALL THE FACTS CHARACTERIZING THE TRANSACTION IN QUESTION , INCLUDING THE TYPE OF UNDERTAKING OR BUSINESS , WHETHER OR NOT THE BUSINESS ' S TANGIBLE ASSETS , SUCH AS BUILDINGS AND MOVABLE PROPERTY , ARE TRANSFERRED , THE VALUE OF ITS INTANGIBLE ASSETS AT THE TIME OF THE TRANSFER , WHETHER OR NOT THE MAJORITY OF ITS EMPLOYEES ARE TAKEN OVER BY THE NEW EMPLOYER , WHETHER OR NOT ITS CUSTOMERS ARE TRANSFERRED AND THE DEGREE OF SIMILARITY BETWEEN THE ACTIVITIES CARRIED ON BEFORE AND AFTER THE TRANSFER AND THE PERIOD , IF ANY , FOR WHICH THOSE ACTIVITIES WERE SUSPENDED . IT SHOULD BE NOTED , HOWEVER , THAT ALL THOSE CIRCUMSTANCES ARE MERELY SINGLE FACTORS IN THE OVERALL ASSESSMENT WHICH MUST BE MADE AND CANNOT THEREFORE BE CONSIDERED IN ISOLATION .

48. In this respect, it must be recalled that, where two entities constitute one economic entity, the fact that the entity that committed the infringement still exists does not as such preclude imposing a penalty on the entity to which its economic activities were transferred (see, to that effect, Aalborg Portland and Others v Commission , paragraphs 355 to 358).

55 As the Court has held, in particular in Van Eycke, cited above, paragraph 16, Article 85 of the Treaty is itself concerned only with the conduct of undertakings and not with legislation adopted by Member States. However, according to settled case-law of the Court of Justice, Article 85 of the Treaty, read in conjunction with Article 5, requires the Member States not to introduce or maintain in force measures, whether legislative or regulatory, which may render ineffective the competition rules applicable to undertakings. Such is the case, according to the same case-law, where a Member State requires or favours the adoption of agreements, decisions or concerted practices contrary to Article 85 of the Treaty or reinforces their effects or deprives its own legislation of its official character by delegating to private traders responsibility for taking decisions affecting the economic sphere (see also Case C-2/91 Meng [1993] ECR I-5751, paragraph 14; Case C-185/91 Reiff [1993] ECR I-5801, paragraph 14; Case C-245/91 Ohra Schadeverzekeringen [1993] ECR I-5851, paragraph 10; Case C-35/96 Commission v Italy [1998] ECR I-3851, paragraphs 53 and 54; and Case C-266/96 Corsica Ferries France v Gruppo Antichi Ormeggiatori del Porto di Genova and Others [1998] ECR I-3949, paragraphs 35, 36 and 49).

16 It must be pointed out in that regard that Articles 85 and 86 of the Treaty per se are concerned only with the conduct of undertakings and not with national legislation . The Court has consistently held, however, that Articles 85 and 86 of the Treaty, in conjunction with Article 5, require the Member States not to introduce or maintain in force measures, even of a legislative nature, which may render ineffective the competition rules applicable to undertakings . Such would be the case, the Court has held, if a Member State were to require or favour the adoption of agreements, decisions or concerted practices contrary to Article 85 or to reinforce their effects, or to deprive its own legislation of its official character by delegating to private traders responsibility for taking decisions affecting the economic sphere .

73 It should first be borne in mind that it is apparent from the Court's case-law that the Community institutions have been given a wide discretion in the application of Article 109 of the OCT Decision (see, to that effect, Case C-390/95 P Antillean Rice Mills and Others v Commission, cited above, paragraph 48).

16. It follows from Article 48 EC that the right to freedom of establishment is guaranteed not only to Community nationals but also to companies formed in accordance with the legislation of a Member State and having their registered office, central administration or principal place of business within the Community (see, to that effect, Case 81/87 Daily Mail and General Trust [1988] ECR 5483; Case C-212/97 Centros [1999] ECR I-1459, paragraph 18; and Case C‑208/00 Überseering [2002] ECR I-9919, paragraph 56).

18 The provision of United Kingdom law at issue in the main proceedings imposes no restriction on transactions such as those described above . Nor does it stand in the way of a partial or total transfer of the activities of a company incorporated in the United Kingdom to a company newly incorporated in another Member State, if necessary after winding-up and, consequently, the settlement of the tax position of the United Kingdom company . It requires Treasury consent only where such a company seeks to transfer its central management and control out of the United Kingdom while maintaining its legal personality and its status as a United Kingdom company .

46. As regards judicial review of the implementation of that principle, bearing in mind the wide discretion enjoyed by the Community legislature where the common agricultural policy is concerned, the lawfulness of a measure adopted in that sphere can be affected only if the measure is manifestly inappropriate in terms of the objective which the competent institution is seeking to pursue (Case C‑344/04 IATA and ELFAA [2006] ECR I‑403, paragraph 80, and Spain v Council , paragraph 98).

16. In deciding whether an agreement is prohibited by Article 81(1) EC, there is therefore no need to take account of its actual effects once it appears that its object is to prevent, restrict or distort competition within the common market (Joined Cases 56/64 and 58/64 Consten and Grundig v Commission [1966] ECR 299, 342, and Case C‑105/04 P Nederlandse Federatieve Vereniging voor de Groothandel op Elektrotechnisch Gebied v Commission [2006] ECR I‑8725, paragraph 125). That examination must be made in the light of the agreement’s content and economic context (Joined Cases 29/83 and 30/83 Compagnie royale asturienne des mines and Rheinzink v Commission [1984] ECR 1679, paragraph 26, and Case C‑551/03 P General Motors v Commission [2006] ECR I‑3173, paragraph 66).

66. As for the second part of the second ground of appeal, it is clear from the case-law cited in paragraph 102 of the contested judgment, as the Court of First Instance rightly states in that paragraph, that account must be taken not only of the terms of an agreement but also of other factors, such as the aims pursued by the agreement as such, in the light of the economic and legal context, in order to determine whether an agreement has a restrictive object for the purposes of Article 81 EC.

47. The second sentence of Article 7(1)(c) of the Directive allows Member States to take into account the level of minimum national wages and pensions as well as the number of family members when evaluating the sponsor’s resources. As has been pointed out in paragraph 43 of the present judgment, that faculty must be exercised in a manner which avoids undermining the objective of the Directive, which is to promote family reunification, and the effectiveness thereof.

56 Finally, the Court has held equally consistently that Article 6(1) of Decision No 1/80 does not make recognition of the rights which it confers on Turkish workers subject to any condition connected with the reason for which the right to enter, work or reside was initially granted (see, in particular, Kus, paragraphs 21, 22 and 23, Günaydin, paragraph 52, and Birden, paragraph 57).

23 It follows that once a Turkish worker has been employed for more than one year under a valid work permit, he must be regarded as fulfilling the conditions laid down in the first indent of Article 6(1) of Decision No 1/80, even though his residence permit was initially granted to him for a purpose other than that of engaging in paid employment.

67. It is settled case-law of the Court that a provision in an agreement concluded by the Community with non-Member States must be regarded as being directly applicable when, regard being had to its wording and to the purpose and nature of the agreement itself, the provision contains a clear and precise obligation which is not subject, in its implementation or effects, to the adoption of any subsequent measure. The same conditions apply in determining whether the provisions of a decision of the Association Council may have direct effect (see, inter alia, Case C‑262/96 Sürül [1999] ECR I‑2685, paragraph 60 and the case-law cited).

42. According to settled case‑law, that is a broad definition covering all forms of comparative advertising, so that, in order for there to be comparative advertising, it is sufficient for there to be a statement referring even by implication to a competitor or to the goods or services which he offers (see Toshiba Europe , paragraphs 30 and 31; Case C‑44/01 Pippig Augenoptik [2003] ECR I‑3095, paragraph 35; and Case C‑381/05 De Landtsheer Emmanuel [2007] ECR I‑3115, paragraph 16).

16. According to settled case‑law, that is a broad definition covering all forms of comparative advertising, so that, in order for there to be comparative advertising, it is sufficient for there to be a statement referring even by implication to a competitor or to the goods or services which he offers (see Case C‑112/99 Toshiba Europe [2001] ECR I‑7945, paragraphs 30 and 31, and Case C‑44/01 Pippig Augenoptik [2003] ECR I-3095, paragraph 35).

32. Suffice it in this regard to point out that, according to settled case-law, 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 and that the Court cannot take account of any subsequent changes (see, inter alia, Case C-110/00 Commission v Austria [2001] ECR I-7545, paragraph 13, and Case C-310/03 Commission v Luxembourg [2004] ECR I-1969, paragraph 7).

28. Before ruling on the Republic of Poland’s argument that there is an absolute bar to proceeding with an action, it should be borne in mind that, according to the Court of Justice’s settled case-law, the purpose of the pre-litigation procedure is to give the Member State concerned an opportunity, on the one hand, to comply with its obligations under European Union law and, on the other, to avail itself of its right to defend itself against the objections formulated by the Commission. The subject‑matter of the action brought under Article 258 TFEU is, therefore, delimited by the pre-litigation procedure provided for by that article. Accordingly, the action cannot be founded on any objections other than those stated in the pre‑litigation procedure (see, inter alia, Case C‑152/98 Commission v Netherlands [2001] ECR I‑3463, paragraph 23, and Case C‑340/10 Commission v Cyprus [2012] ECR I‑0000, paragraph 21). It must accordingly be founded on the same grounds and pleas as those stated in the reasoned opinion (see, inter alia, Case C‑50/09 Commission v Ireland [2011] ECR I‑873, paragraph 93), which must contain a cogent and detailed exposition of the reasons which led the Commission to the conclusion that the Member State concerned has failed to fulfil one of its obligations under Community law (see, inter alia, Case C‑274/07 Commission v Lithuania [2008] ECR I‑7117, paragraph 23 and the case-law cited).

23. Second, the reasoned opinion must contain a cogent and detailed exposition of the reasons which led the Commission to the conclusion that the Member State concerned has failed to fulfil one of its obligations under Community law (see, Commission v Germany , cited above, paragraph 19, and Commission v United Kingdom , cited above, paragraph 26).

82 In order to satisfy the requirements of Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union when conducting a review in the exercise of its unlimited jurisdiction with regard to the fine, the EU judicature is bound, in the exercise of the powers conferred by Articles 261 and 263 TFEU, to examine all complaints based on issues of fact and law which seek to show that the amount of the fine is not commensurate with the gravity or the duration of the infringement (see judgment of 18 December 2014, Commission v Parker Hannifin Manufacturing and Parker-Hannifin, C‑434/13 P, EU:C:2014:2456, paragraph 75 and the case-law cited).

40 In that regard, it must be held that a reduction in inheritance tax calculated by applying percentages by reference to the period which has elapsed between the two dates on which the liability to tax arose, and made subject to the condition that the asset has already given rise to the imposition of such taxes in Germany in the preceding ten years appears to be appropriate in order to attain the objective pursued in Paragraph 27 of the ErbStG, as described in paragraph 37 above. That reduction is, furthermore, proportionate with regard to that objective since the Federal Republic of Germany did not have the power to tax the previous inheritance. In those circumstances, limiting the benefit of that reduction to situations in which that asset gave rise to taxation in Germany appears proportionate in the light of that objective (see, to that effect, judgment of 1 December 2011 in Commission v Hungary, C‑253/09, EU:C:2011:795, paragraphs 80 and 81).

81. In addition, the restriction in question is proportionate to the objective pursued. It should be remembered, first, that the objective of the legislation at issue is to avoid – upon the purchase of a second principal residence in Hungary – the double taxation of the capital invested in the purchase of the previous residence that has been sold. Second, as noted in paragraph 74 above, the Republic of Hungary has no power to tax real property transactions carried out in other Member States.

24. In this connection, it must first be observed that the Court has already held that, since Directive 2002/14 has defined, in Article 2(d) thereof, the group of persons to be taken into account at the time of the calculation of the staff numbers of the undertaking, Member States cannot exclude from that calculation a specific cate gory of persons initially included in that group (see Case C-385/05 Confédération générale du travail and Others [2007] ECR I-611, paragraph 34).

66 It follows from the Court’s case-law that two conditions must be satisfied for an indirect tax, such as the contested contributions, to be considered as amounting to mere remuneration for public utility services within the meaning of the third paragraph of Article 3 of the Protocol. According to the first of those conditions, such services must be provided, or at least be capable of being provided, to those who have to pay such an indirect tax (judgment in AGF Belgium, C‑191/94, EU:C:1996:144, paragraph 26). According to the second condition, there must be a direct and proportional link between the actual cost of that service and the charge paid by the recipient (judgment in European Community, C‑199/05, EU:C:2006:678, paragraph 25). Those two conditions are cumulative.

25. According to that case-law the characterisation of a duty as a charge for public utility services requires there to be a direct and proportional link between the actual cost of that service and the duty paid by the recipient, that is to say a correlation between the price paid by the latter in consideration for a specific service and the real cost incurred by the Administration through performance of the service.

56. Furthermore, the calculation of the limitation period cannot, in accordance with the case‑law cited in paragraph 36 of the present judgment, be based on criteria which are anything other than strictly objective nor, as the General Court has rightly pointed out, can that calculation differ according to whether the interruption of that period is caused by the bringing of an action or the making of a prior application. Application of the extension on account of distance to the limitation period would have the consequence that limitation would occur at the end of a different period depending on whether the aggrieved party has chosen to bring the matter directly before the General Court or to make a prior application to the competent European Union institution, something which would be at variance with the requirement of legal certainty necessary for the application of limitation periods ( Commission v Cantina sociale di Dolianova and Others , paragraph 60).

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.

127. So far as concerns the first circumstance, it is admittedly liable to produce effects in the contractual relations between the purchaser who has given the false identity and the false address and the person supplying the foreign decoding device, who may in particular claim damages from the purchaser should the false identity and the false address given by the latter cause him loss or render him liable to a body such as FAPL. On the other hand, such a circumstance does not affect the conclusion set out in paragraph 125 of the present judgment, because it has no impact on the number of users who have paid for reception of the broadcasts.

21. Moreover, by focusing on a comparison of the percentage of recoverable waste in the States of destination and dispatch, the Netherlands rules on shipments of waste allow an objection to be raised against a shipment of waste for recovery on the basis not only of an independent evaluation of the economic and environmental aspects of the recovery operation in the State of destination, but also of the treatment capacity available in the State of dispatch. The Court has held that, in the context of the Community rules on shipments of waste, considerations of self‑sufficiency and proximity do not apply to shipments of waste for recovery (Case C-203/96 Dusseldorp and Others [1998] ECR I-4075, paragraphs 27 to 34).

61. It should be noted at once that, as is clear from the case-law subsequent to Athinaïki Zithopoiïa , the Court maintains, as a condition for the existence of a withholding tax within the meaning of Article 5(1) of Directive 90/435, that the taxable person must be the holder of the shares (see Océ Van der Grinten , paragraph 47, and Test Claimants in the FII Group Litigation , paragraph 108).

47. The Court has already held that any tax on income received in the State in which dividends are distributed is a withholding tax on distributed profits for the purposes of Article 5(1) of the Directive where the chargeable event for the tax is the payment of dividends or of any other income from shares, the taxable amount is the income from those shares and the taxable person is the holder of the shares (to this effect, see Epson Europe , paragraph 23, and Athinaiki Zithopiia , paragraphs 28 and 29).

44. It is settled case-law that the taxable amount for the supply of goods or services effected for consideration is represented by the consideration actually received for them by the taxable person. That consideration is thus the subjective value, that is to say, the value actually received, and not a value estimated according to objective criteria. In addition, that consideration must be capable of being expressed in monetary terms (see, to that effect, Case C-40/09 Astra Zeneca UK [2010] ECR I-7505, paragraph 28 and the case-law cited).

41 As Community law stands at present, social policy is a matter for the Member States, which enjoy a reasonable margin of discretion as regards the nature of social protection measures and the detailed arrangements for their implementation (Case C-229/89 Commission v Belgium [1991] ECR I-2205, paragraph 22, and Case C-226/91 Molenbroek [1992] ECR I-5943, paragraph 15). If they meet a legitimate aim of social policy, are suitable and requisite for attaining that end and are therefore justified by reasons unrelated to discrimination on grounds of sex, such measures cannot be regarded as being contrary to the principle of equal treatment (Commission v Belgium, cited above, paragraphs 19 and 26, and Molenbroek, cited above, paragraphs 13 and 19).

19 It follows from the foregoing considerations that the national legislation at issue corresponds to a legitimate objective of social policy, involves supplements suitable and requisite for attaining that aim and is therefore justified by reasons unrelated to discrimination on grounds of sex.

60. That interpretation is supported by Article 17 of Directive 2003/86, which requires applications for family reunification to be examined on a case-by-case basis.

24. First of all, it must be remembered that, according to settled case-law, in order to ensure, as far as possible, that the rights and obligations which derive from Regulation No 44/2001 for the Member States and the persons to whom it applies are equal and uniform, ‘civil and commercial matters’ should not be interpreted as a mere reference to the internal law of one or other of the States concerned. That concept must be regarded as an independent concept to be interpreted by referring, first, to the objectives and scheme of that regulation and, second, to the general principles which stem from the corpus of the national legal systems (see, to that effect, judgments in Apostolides , C‑420/07, EU:C:2009:271, paragraph 41 and the case-law cited; Cartier parfums-lunettes and Axa Corporate Solutions Assurance , C‑1/13, EU:C:2014:109, paragraph 32 and the case-law cited; and Hi Hotel HCF , C‑387/12, EU:C:2014:215, paragraph 24 and the case-law cited).

32. According to settled case-law, the provisions of that regulation must be interpreted independently, by reference to its scheme and purpose (see, Case C‑456/11 Gothaer Allgemeine Versicherung and Other s [2012] ECR, paragraph 25 and the case-law cited).

41. On the other hand, the position is different if the services are in fact supplied in that other Member State. Such a situation is contrary to the objective of the provisions of the VAT Directive determining the place where supplies of services are taxed, which is to avoid, first, conflicts of jurisdiction which may result in double taxation and, secondly, non-taxation (see, to this effect, judgment in Welmory , C‑605/12, EU:C:2014:2298, paragraph 42). Furthermore, such a situation, in that it results in VAT due in a Member State being avoided, is contrary both to the obligation of the Member States, which stems from Article 4(3) TEU, Article 325 TFEU and Articles 2, 250(1) and 273 of the VAT Directive, to take all legislative and administrative measures appropriate for ensuring collection of all the VAT due on their territory and for preventing evasion and to the principle of fiscal neutrality inherent in the common system of VAT, according to which economic operators carrying out the same transactions must not be treated differently in relation to the levying of VAT (see, to this effect, judgments in Commission v Italy , C‑132/06, EU:C:2008:412, paragraphs 37, 39 and 46; Belvedere Costruzioni , C‑500/10, EU:C:2012:186, paragraphs 20 to 22; and Åkerberg Fransson , C‑617/10, EU:C:2013:105, paragraphs 25 and 26).

45. It is irrelevant in that regard that, as was stressed in the main proceedings, the system of recruitment of professional footballers is not based on a public tender or direct negotiation following a selection procedure requiring the submission of applications and pre-selection of players having regard to their interest for the employer. Indeed, it is clear from well-established case-law that, having regard to the objectives of the European Union, sport is subject to European Union law to the extent that it constitutes an economic activity (see, in particular, Case 13/76 Donà [1976] ECR 1333, paragraph 12, and Case C‑325/08 Olympique Lyonnais [2010] ECR I‑2177, paragraph 27). That is the case as regards the activities of professional or semi-professional footballers where they are in gainful employment or provide a remunerated service (Case C‑415/93 Bosman [1995] ECR I‑4921, paragraph 73).

12 ( 2 ) HAVING REGARD TO THE OBJECTIVES OF THE COMMUNITY , THE PRACTICE OF SPORT IS SUBJECT TO COMMUNITY LAW ONLY IN SO FAR AS IT CONSTITUTES AN ECONOMIC ACTIVITY WITHIN THE MEANING OF ARTICLE 2 OF THE TREATY . THIS APPLIES TO THE ACTIVITIES OF PROFESSIONAL OR SEMI-PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL PLAYERS , WHICH ARE IN THE NATURE OF GAINFUL EMPLOYMENT OR REMUNERATED SERVICE .

24 As for Article 22, paragraph 4 thereof governs the submission of returns by taxable persons, in particular the periods for which they are submitted and their content, whilst paragraph 5 provides that the amount of the tax must be paid by the taxable person when submitting the return, unless provision has been made for a different payment date or for the levying of interim payments.

77. In that regard, it is settled case-law that the Treaty rules governing freedom of movement for persons and the measures adopted to implement them cannot be applied to activities which have no factor linking them with any of the situations governed by Community law and which are confined in all relevant respects within a single Member State (Case C‑212/06 Government of the French Community and Walloon Government [2008] ECR I‑0000, paragraph 33).

33. In this respect, it must be borne in mind that it is settled case-law that the Treaty rules governing freedom of movement for persons and the measures adopted to implement them cannot be applied to activities which have no factor linking them with any of the situations governed by Community law and which are confined in all relevant respects within a single Member State (see, inter alia, with regard to freedom of establishment and freedom of movement for workers, respectively, Case 20/87 Gauchard [1987] ECR 4879, paragraphs 12 and 13, and Case C‑18/95 Terhoeve [1999] ECR I‑345, paragraph 26, and the decisions there cited). The same holds good in respect of the provisions of Regulation No 1408/71 (see, to that effect, Case C‑153/91 Petit [1992] ECR I‑4973, paragraph 10, and Joined Cases C‑95/99 to C‑98/99 and C‑180/99 Khalil and Others [2001] ECR I‑7413, paragraph 70).

30 To that end, Article 3(1) of that regulation lays down an obligation, for any natural person entering or leaving the European Union and carrying an amount of cash equal to or more than EUR 10000, to declare that amount (see judgment of 16 July 2015, Chmielewski, C‑255/14, EU:C:2015:475, paragraph 19).

64. While the appellants seek to have the judgment under appeal set aside or, in the alternative, to have the judgment set aside in so far as it confirms the fine imposed or to obtain a reduction in the amount of the fine, it should be noted that, in the absence of any evidence that the excessive duration of the proceedings before the General Court had an effect on the outcome of the dispute, failure on the part of the General Court to adjudicate within a reasonable time cannot lead to the judgment under appeal being set aside. Indeed, where failure to adjudicate within a reasonable time has no effect on the outcome of the dispute, the setting aside of the judgment under appeal would not provide a remedy for any infringement by the General Court of the principle of effective judicial protection (Case C‑40/12 P Gascogne Sack Deutschland v Commission EU:C:2013:768, paragraphs 81 and 82; Case C‑50/12 P Kendrion v Commission EU:C:2013:771, paragraphs 82 and 83; and Case C‑58/12 P Groupe Gascog ne v Commission EU:C:2013:770, paragraphs 81 and 82).

83. Cette jurisprudence est fondée notamment sur la considération selon laquelle, en l’absence d’incidence sur la solution du litige du non-respect d’un délai de jugement raisonnable, l’annulation de l’arrêt attaqué ne remédierait pas à la violation, par le Tribunal, du principe de protection juridictionnelle effective (arrêt Der Grüne Punkt – Duales System Deutschland/Commission, précité, point 193).

38 As the Court has consistently held ( see in particular the judgments in Case 255/84 Nashi Fujikoshi v Council [1987] ECR 1861, paragraph 39 and in Case C-156/87 Gestetner v Commission [1990] ECR I-781, paragraph 67 ), the statement of reasons required by Article 190 of the Treaty must disclose in a clear and unequivocal fashion the reasoning followed by the Community authority which adopted the measure in question in such a way as to make the persons concerned aware of the reasons for the measure and thus enable them to defend their rights, and to enable the Court to exercise its supervisory jurisdiction .

34. On the other hand, and to the extent to which the assets of the company are defined as all the property which the members have contributed, together with any increase in its value (see, to that effect, Case C-38/88 Siegen [1990] ECR I-1447, paragraph 12), the ‘increase in the assets’ within the meaning of Article 4(2)(b) of the Directive includes, in principle, every kind of increase in the net assets of a capital company. Thus, the Court has described as an ‘increase in the assets’ within the meaning of that provision, for example, a transfer of profits (see Case C-49/91 Weber Haus [1992] ECR I-5207, paragraph 10), an interest-free loan (see, in particular, Case C-392/00 Norddeutsche Gesellschaft zur Beratung und Durchführung von Entsorgungsaufgaben bei Kernkraftwerken [2002] ECR I‑7397, paragraph 18), an absorption of losses (see Siegen , paragraph 13), and the waiver of a claim (Case C‑15/89 Deltakabel [1991] ECR I-241, paragraph 12).

13 That being so, when a company has incurred losses and one of its shareholders agrees to absorb those losses, that shareholder makes a contribution which increases the assets of the company . He restores the assets to the level which they had reached before the losses were sustained . It is a different matter when the shareholder absorbs the losses by virtue of an undertaking which he entered into before those losses were sustained . The undertaking means that any losses which the company may subsequently incur will have no effect on the level of its assets .

34. Since, in addressing the question referred for a preliminary ruling in the case which gave rise to the judgment in Stratmann and Fleischversorgung Neuss , the Court did not answer the question whether a fee charged pursuant to point 4(b) of Chapter I of Annex A to Directive 85/73 must take the form of a standard-rated payment, it is impossible to infer any conclusion as to the answer to that question from that judgment.

33 By the fourth question the national court wishes to know what effect the draft national Law designed to implement Directive 86/378, on the one hand, and Protocol No 2, on the other hand, may have in the context of the present case.

43 In the light of those provisions, the Member States and the parties concerned were reasonably entitled to consider that Article 119 did not apply to pensions paid under contracted-out schemes and that derogations from the principle of equality between men and women were still permitted in that sphere .

39. The actual application by the Court of First Instance of those criteria to these cases involves findings of a factual nature. The Court of First Instance has exclusive jurisdiction to make findings of fact, save where a substantive inaccuracy in its findings is attributable to the documents submitted to it, and to appraise those facts. That appraisal thus does not, save where the clear sense of the evidence produced to it has been distorted, constitute a point of law which is subject, as such, to review by the Court of Justice on appeal (see Case C-104/00 P DKV v OHIM [2002] ECR I-7561, paragraph 22).

36. It must be noted that under Article 4(1) of the Sixth Directive a taxable person is any person who independently carries out any economic activity specified in paragraph 2 of that article. ‘Economic activities’ are defined in Article 4(2) as comprising all activities of producers, traders and persons supplying services, and in particular the exploitation of tangible or intangible property for the purpose of obtaining income therefrom on a continuing basis. ‘Exploitation’ within the meaning of Article 4(2) refers, in accordance with the requirements of the principle that the common system of VAT should be neutral, to all those transactions, whatever may be their legal form (see Case C‑186/89 Van Tiem [1990] ECR I‑4363, paragraph 18; Case C-306/94 Régie dauphinoise [1996] ECR I‑3695, paragraph 15, and Case C-77/01 EDM [2004] ECR I-0000, paragraph 48).

15 It follows from Article 2 of the Sixth Directive, which defines the scope of VAT, that only activities of an economic nature are subject to that tax. Under Article 4(1) a taxable person is any person who independently carries out one of those economic activities. The concept of "economic activities" is defined in Article 4(2) as comprising all activities of producers, traders and persons supplying services, and in particular the exploitation of tangible or intangible property for the purpose of obtaining income therefrom on a continuing basis. Finally, it follows from Article 2(1) that a taxable person must be acting "as such" if a transaction is to be subject to value added tax.

12 It cannot be objected in this regard that, because of the dispute that had been referred to the Court of Justice, during the 1988 to 1990 financial years the Commission had confined itself, in similar circumstances, to making a 5% correction in respect of expenditure on such refunds. In point of fact, according to the case-law of the Court of Justice, where the Commission has tolerated 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 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).

35. The expression ‘to meet family expenses’ in Article 1(u)(i) of Regulation No 1408/71 is to be interpreted as referring, in particular, to a public contribution to a family’s budget to alleviate the financial burdens involved in the maintenance of children ( Offermanns , paragraph 41, and Case C‑333/00 Maaheimo [2002] ECR I‑10087, paragraph 25).

41 It follows that the expression to meet family expenses in Article 1(u)(i) of Regulation No 1408/71 is to be interpreted as referring, in particular, to a public contribution to a family's budget to alleviate the financial burdens involved in the maintenance (Unterhalt) of children.

55 Secondly, in accordance with the Court’s settled case-law, the objective of Directive 2003/4 is to ensure a general principle of access to environmental information held by or for public authorities and, as is apparent from recital 9 and Article 1 of that directive, to achieve the widest possible systematic availability and dissemination to the public of environmental information (see, inter alia, judgment of 19 December 2013, Fish Legal and Shirley, C‑279/12, EU:C:2013:853, paragraph 66).

54. Such a limitation would, in addition, have the effect of artificially minimising the economic significance of the infringement committed by a particular undertaking, since the mere fact that a limited amount of direct evidence of sales actually affected by the cartel had been found would lead to the imposition of a fine which bore no actual relation to the scope of application of the cartel in question. Such a reward for secrecy would also adversely affect the objective of effective investigation and sanctioning of infringements of Article 101 TFEU and, therefore, cannot be permitted (judgments in Team Relocations and Others v Commission , C‑444/11 P, EU:C:2013:464, paragraph 77, and Guardian Industries and Guardian Europe v Commission , C‑580/12 P, EU:C:2014:2363, paragraph 58).

58. Such a limitation would, in addition, have the effect of artificially minimising the economic significance of the infringement committed by a particular undertaking since the mere fact that a limited amount of direct evidence of sales actually affected by the cartel had been found would lead to the imposition of a fine which bore no actual relation to the scope of application of the cartel in question. Such a reward for being secretive would also adversely affect the objective of the effective investigation and sanctioning of infringements of Article 81 EC and, therefore, cannot be permitted ( Team Relocations and Others v Commission , EU:C:2013:464, paragraph 77).

95. Furthermore, the Member State, instead of making the product concerned subject to such a procedure, could have prescribed suitable labelling warning consumers of the potential risks related to taking this product. The protection of public health would thus have been ensured without such serious restrictions on the free movement of goods (see, to that effect, Case C-17/93 van der Veldt [1994] ECR I-3537, paragraph 19).

15. As regards the EEA Agreement, it should be recalled that one of the principal aims of that agreement is to provide for the fullest possible realisation of the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital within the whole European Economic Area (EEA), so that the internal market established within the European Union is extended to the EFTA States. From that angle, several provisions of the EEA Agreement are intended to ensure as uniform an interpretation as possible thereof throughout the EEA (see Opinion 1/92 [1992] ECR I-2821). It is for the Court, in that context, to ensure that the rules of the EEA Agreement which are identical in substance to those of the FEU Treaty are interpreted uniformly within the Member States (Case C-540/07 Commission v Italy [2009] ECR I-10983, paragraph 65, and Case C-72/09 Établissements Rimbaud [2010] ECR I-10659, paragraph 20).

20. One of the principal aims of the EEA Agreement is to provide for the fullest possible realisation of the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital within the whole EEA, so that the internal market established within the European Union is extended to the EFTA States. From that angle, several provisions of the EEA Agreement are intended to ensure as uniform an interpretation as possible thereof throughout the EEA (see Opinion 1/92 [1992] ECR I-2821). It is for the Court, in that context, to ensure that the rules of the EEA Agreement which are identical in substance to those of the TFEU are interpreted uniformly within the Member States ( Ospelt and Schlössle Weissenberg , paragraph 29).

33. Firstly, it must be noted that Article 12 EC, to which express reference is made by the referring court and which enshrines the general principle of non-discrimination on grounds of nationality applies independently only to situations governed by Community law for which the Treaty lays down no specific rules of non-discrimination (see Case C‑100/01 Oteiza Olazabal [2002] ECR I‑10981, paragraph 25; Case C‑289/02 AMOK [2003] ECR I‑15059, paragraph 25; and Case C‑387/01 Weigel [2004] ECR I‑4981, paragraph 57).

50. The use of a sign identical with a trade mark constitutes use in the course of trade where it occurs in the context of commercial activity with a view to economic advantage and not as a private matter (Case C‑206/01 Arsenal Football Club [2002] ECR I‑10273, paragraph 40; Céline , paragraph 17; and UDV North America , paragraph 44).

17. It is a matter of agreement in the main proceedings that the sign which is identical to the mark at issue is used in the course of a commercial activity with a view to gain and not as a private matter. The mark is therefore being used in the course of trade (see, by analogy, Arsenal Football Club , paragraph 40, and Adam Opel , paragraph 18).

56 Where a claim for damages is brought before the General Court, which has jurisdiction under Article 256(1) TFEU, it must determine such a claim sitting in a different composition from that which heard the dispute giving rise to the procedure the duration of which is criticised (see, to that effect, judgments in Telefónica and Telefónica de España v Commission, C‑295/12 P, EU:C:2014:2062, paragraph 67; ICF v Commission, C‑467/13 P, EU:C:2014:2274, paragraph 58; and Guardian Industries and Guardian Europe v Commission, C‑580/12 P, EU:C:2014:2363, paragraph 19).

29 Although the reasoning required by Article 190 of the EC Treaty must show clearly and unequivocally the reasoning of the Community authority which adopted the contested measure so as to enable the persons concerned to ascertain the reasons for the measure and to enable the Court to exercise its review (see the judgment in Case C-466/93 Atlanta Fruchthandelsgesellschaft and Others v Bundesamt fuer Ernaehrung und Forstwirtschaft, not yet published in the ECR, paragraph 16), it is not required to go into every relevant point of fact and law. The question whether a statement of reasons satisfies those requirements must be assessed with reference not only to its wording but also to its context and the whole body of legal rules governing the matter in question. Consequently, if the contested measure clearly discloses the essential objective pursued by the institution, it would be excessive to require a specific statement of reasons for each of the technical choices made by the institution.

16 As regards the criticism by the national court of the lack of reasons for the rate of import duty adopted, the Court has consistently held that the statement of reasons required by Article 190 of the Treaty must be appropriate to the nature of the measure in question. The reasoning of the institution which adopted the measure must be stated clearly and unequivocally, so as to inform persons concerned of the justification for the measure adopted and to enable the Court to exercise its powers of review. It also follows from that case-law that the statement of reasons for a measure is not required to detail every relevant point of fact and law, as the question whether the statement of reasons satisfies the requirements of Article 190 of the Treaty must be considered with reference not only to its wording but also to its context and the whole body of legal rules governing the matter in question. Consequently, if the contested measure clearly discloses the essential objective pursued by the institution, it would be excessive to require a specific statement of reasons for each of the technical choices made by the institution (see inter alia the judgments in Case 250/84 Eridania Zuccherifici Nazionali v Cassa Conguaglio Zucchero [1986] ECR 117, paragraphs 37 and 38, and, most recently, Case C-478/93 Netherlands v Commission [1995] ECR I-0000, paragraphs 48 and 49).

48 That principle requires that legal rules be clear and precise, and aims to ensure that situations and legal relationships governed by Community law remain foreseeable (Duff, cited above, paragraph 20).

51 Having regard to the circumstances of the cases in the main proceedings, where one of the defendants in the main proceedings is a parent company and the other its subsidiary, which the applicant in the main proceedings accuses of similar, if not identical, acts that infringe the same protected designs and relate to identical allegedly infringing goods made by the parent company that sells them on its own account in certain Member States and also sells them to its subsidiary so that the latter may sell them in other Member States, it should be recalled that the Court has already held that the case in which defendant companies belonging to the same group have acted in an identical or similar manner in accordance with a common policy elaborated by one of them must be regarded as constituting the same situation of fact (see, inter alia, judgment of 13 July 2006, Roche Nederland and Others, C‑539/03, EU:C:2006:458, paragraph 34).

34. That finding is not called into question even in the situation referred to by the national court in its second question, that is where defendant companies, which belong to the same group, have acted in an identical or similar manner in accordance with a common policy elaborated by one of them, so that the factual situation would be the same.

51. As the Court has held, under the general scheme of value-added tax, the final consumer is the person who acquires goods or services for personal use, as opposed to an economic activity, and thus bears the tax. The result is that, in the light of the social purpose of Article 17 [which is taken up in substance by the second paragraph of Article 110 of Directive 2006/112], the term ‘final consumer’ can be applied only to a person who does not use exempted goods or services in the course of an economic activity. The provision of goods or services at a stage higher in the production or distribution chain which is nevertheless sufficiently close to the consumer to be of advantage to him must also be considered to be for the benefit of the final consumer as so defined (see above cases Commission v Ireland , paragraph 18, and Commission v United Kingdom , paragraph 17).

34 Moreover, the Notice on Cooperation and the Leniency Notice, adopted in the context of the ECN, were published in 2004 and 2006, respectively, in the ‘C’ series of the Official Journal of the European Union, which, by contrast with the ‘L’ series of the Official Journal, is not intended for the publication of legally binding measures, but only of information, recommendations and opinions concerning the European Union (judgments in Polska Telefonia Cyfrowa, C‑410/09, EU:C:2011:294, paragraph 35, and Expedia, C‑226/11, EU:C:2012:795, paragraph 30).

35. Moreover, those guidelines were published in 2002 in the ‘C’ series of the Official Journal of the European Union . By contrast with the ‘L’ series of the Official Journal, the ‘C’ series is not intended for the publication of legally binding measures, but only of information, recommendations and opinions concerning the European Union.

18 That argument must be rejected . It must be observed that the Commission has shown that the aid in question, which was granted without any specific conditions and solely according to the quantities used, should be regarded as an operating aid to the undertakings concerned and that, as such, it affected trading conditions to an extent contrary to the common interest . The Italian Government has failed to provide any relevant evidence to the contrary .

39. It is to be recalled, next, that the Court has held that a Member State is, in principle, free to prevent the imposition of a series of charges to tax on dividends received by a resident company by opting for the exemption method when the dividends are paid by a resident company and for the imputation method when they are paid by a non-resident company. Those two methods are in fact equivalent provided, however, that the tax rate applied to foreign-sourced dividends is not higher than the rate applied to nationally-sourced dividends and that the tax credit is at least equal to the amount paid in the State of the company making the distribution, up to the limit of the tax charged in the Member State of the company receiving the dividends (see Test Claimants in the FII Group Litigation , paragraphs 48 and 57; Haribo Lakritzen Hans Riegel and Österreichische Salinen , paragraph 86; Case C‑310/09 Accor [2011] ECR I‑8115, paragraph 88; and the order in Case C‑201/05 Test Claimants in the CFC and Dividend Group Litigation [2008] ECR I‑2875, paragraph 39).

86. It has been held that European Union law does not prohibit a Member State from preventing the imposition of a series of charges to tax on dividends received by a resident company by applying rules which exempt those dividends from tax when they are paid by a resident company, while preventing those dividends from being liable to a series of charges to tax through an imputation method when they are paid by a non-resident company, provided, however, that the tax rate applied to foreign-sourced dividends is not higher than the rate applied to nationally-sourced dividends and that the tax credit is at least equal to the amount paid in the State of the company making the distribution, up to the limit of the tax charged in the Member State of the company receiving the dividends (see Test Claimants in the FII Group Litigation , paragraphs 48 and 57, and the order in Case C‑201/05 Test Claimants in the CFC and Dividend Group Litigation [2008] ECR I‑2875, paragraph 39).

21. Under Article 234 EC, which is based on a clear separation of functions between national courts and tribunals and the Court of Justice, the latter is empowered to rule on the interpretation or validity of Community provisions only on the basis of the facts which the national court or tribunal puts before it. However, it is for the national court or tribunal to apply the rules of Community law to a specific case. No such application is possible without a comprehensive appraisal of the facts of the case (Case C-107/98 Teckal [1999] ECR I-8121, paragraphs 29 and 31). The Court therefore has no jurisdiction to give a ruling on the facts in the main proceedings or to apply the rules of Community law which it has interpreted to national measures or situations, since those questions are matters for the exclusive jurisdiction of the national court or tribunal (see Case C-318/98 Fornasar and Others [2000] ECR I-4785, paragraph 32).

51. Il ressort de la jurisprudence qu’une prestation peut être considérée comme accessoire à une prestation principale lorsqu’elle constitue non une fin en soi, mais le moyen de bénéficier dans les meilleures conditions du service principal (voir, en ce sens, arrêts Madgett et Baldwin, précité, point 24; du 25 février 1999, CPP, C‑349/96, Rec. p. I‑973, point 30; du 6 novembre 2003, Dornier, C‑45/01, Rec. p. I‑12911, point 34, ainsi que Horizon College, précité, point 29).

30 There is a single supply in particular in cases where one or more elements are to be regarded as constituting the principal service, whilst one or more elements are to be regarded, by contrast, as ancillary services which share the tax treatment of the principal service. A service must be regarded as ancillary to a principal service if it does not constitute for customers an aim in itself, but a means of better enjoying the principal service supplied (Joined Cases C-308/96 and C-94/97 Commissioners of Customs and Excise v Madgett and Baldwin [1998] ECR I-6229, paragraph 24).

38. It should be noted that in its application the Commission may clarify its initial grounds of complaint provided, however, that it does not alter the subject-matter of the dispute. In producing fresh evidence intended to illustrate the grounds of complaint set out in its reasoned opinion, which allege a failure of a general nature to comply with the provisions of a directive, the Commission does not alter the subject-matter of the dispute (see, by analogy, the judgment of 12 October 2004 in Case C-328/02 Commission v Greece , not published in the ECR, paragraphs 32 and 36).

51 Thus, in the present case, such an indication is liable to have an effect on the powers of the Commission and of the Council and on their respective roles in the procedure for the adoption of the contested act. In the same way, an indication of the legal basis is necessary in order to determine the voting procedure within the Council (see, by analogy, judgment of 1 October 2009, Commission v Council, C‑370/07, EU:C:2009:590, paragraph 48). In particular, since the contested act does not correspond to any of the situations mentioned in the second subparagraph of Article 218(8) TFEU, the Council must, in principle, in accordance with the provisions, read together, of the first subparagraph of Article 218(8) and Article 218(9) TFEU, act by qualified majority when adopting that act (see, to that effect, judgment of 18 December 2014, United Kingdom v Council, C‑81/13, EU:C:2014:2449, paragraph 66).

48. The indication of the legal basis also has particular importance for preserving the prerogatives of the Community institutions concerned by the procedure for the adoption of a measure. Thus, in the present case, such an indication is liable to have an effect on the powers of the Parliament, given that Articles 133 EC, 175 EC, and 300(2) EC do not confer on it the same degree of involvement in the adoption of a measure. In the same way, an indication of the legal basis is necessary in order to determine the voting procedure within the Council. In that regard, the first subparagraph of Article 300(2) EC provides that the Council is to act by qualified majority except, first, when the agreement covers a field for which unanimity is required for the adoption of internal rules and, second, for the agreements referred to in Article 310 EC.

24. First of all, it must be pointed out that, when the Court is requested to give a preliminary ruling on a matter of tariff classification, its task is to provide the national court with guidance on the criteria which will enable the latter to classify the products at issue correctly in the CN, rather than to effect that classification itself, a fortiori since the Court does not necessarily have available to it all the information which is essential in that regard. In any event the national court is in a better position to do so (see judgments in Proxxon , C‑500/04, EU:C:2006:111, paragraph 23; Digitalnet and Others , C‑320/11, C‑330/11, C‑382/11 and C‑383/11, EU:C:2012:745, paragraph 61; and Vario Tek , C‑178/14, EU:C:2015:152, paragraph 18).

42. The Court has deduced from, first, the very wording of Article 12 of the Association Agreement and Article 36 of the Additional Protocol, which was signed in Brussels on 23 November 1970 and concluded, approved and confirmed on behalf of the Community by Council Regulation (EEC) No 2760/72 of 19 December 1972 (OJ 1973 C 113, p. 18) and, second, the objective of Decision No 1/80, that the principles laid down in Article 48 of the EC Treaty (now, after amendment, Article 39 EC), Article 49 of the EC Treaty (now, after amendment, Article 40 EC) and Article 50 of the EC Treaty (now Article 41 EC) must be extended, so far as possible, to Turkish nationals who enjoy the rights conferred by that decision (see, in particular, Ayaz , paragraph 44).

44. Since Case C-434/93 Bozkurt [1995] ECR I-1475, paragraphs 14, 19 and 20, the Court has consistently inferred from the wording of Article 12 of the Association Agreement and Article 36 of the Additional Protocol, as well as from the objective of Decision No 1/80, which is progressively to secure freedom of movement for workers, guided by Article 48 of the Treaty, Article 49 of the EC Treaty (now, after amendment, Article 40 EC) and Article 50 of the EC Treaty (now Article 41 EC), that the principles laid down in those articles must be extended, so far as possible, to Turkish nationals who enjoy the rights conferred by that decision (see, most recently, Wählergruppe Gemeinsam , cited above, paragraph 72, and, by analogy, with respect to Article 14 of the Association Agreement in relation to freedom to provide services, Abatay and Others , cited above, paragraph 112).

48. In order to assess whether or not a mark is devoid of any distinctive character within the meaning of Article 7(1)(b) of Regulation No 40/94, the Office, or, where a challenge is brought, the Court of First Instance, must have regard to all the relevant facts and circumstances (see, in relation to Article 3(1)(b) of Directive 89/104, Case C-363/99 Koninklijke KPN Nederland [2004] ECR I-0000, paragraph 35).

110. The effect of that scheme in terms of offering an incentive for electricity producers in general — including, in particular, those who are both producers, on the one hand, and suppliers or consumers, on the other — to increase their production of green electricity does not appear to be open to doubt; nor, consequently, does it appear possible to call in question the ability of that scheme to attain the legitimate objective pursued in the circumstances of this case (see, to that effect, Ålands Vindkraft , EU:C:2014:2037, paragraphs 111 and 112).

112. The effect of that scheme in terms of offering an incentive for electricity producers in general — including, in particular, for those who are both producers, on the one hand, and suppliers or consumers, on the other — to increase their production of green electricity does not appear to be open to doubt; nor, consequently, does it appear possible to call in question the ability of that scheme to attain the legitimate objective pursued in the circumstances of this case.

34. Moreover, according to settled case-law, Article 22(1) of Regulation No 1408/71 is intended to allow an insured person, authorised by the competent institution to go to another Member State to receive there treatment appropriate to his condition, to receive sickness benefits in kind, on behalf of the competent institution, in accordance with the provisions of the legislation of the State in which the services are provided. By contrast, interpreted in the light of its purpose, that article is not intended to regulate the ‘reimbursement by Member States, at the tariffs in force in the competent State, of costs incurred in connection with treatment provided in another Member State’ (Case C‑158/96 Kohll [1998] ECR I‑1931, paragraph 27, and Vanbraekel and Others , paragraph 36).

61 As has already been held with regard to Article 14 of that directive, which establishes a list of requirements that are ‘prohibited’ within the framework of the exercise of freedom of establishment, the Court considers that Articles 9 to 13 of Directive 2006/123 provide for exhaustive harmonisation concerning the services falling within their scope (see, by analogy, judgment of 16 June 2015 in Rina Services and Others, C‑593/13, EU:C:2015:399, paragraphs 37 and 38).

38. That interpretation would be contrary to the conclusion drawn by the EU legislature in recital 6 in the preamble to Directive 2006/123, to the effect that barriers to freedom of establishment may not be removed solely by relying on direct application of Article 49 TFEU, owing, inter alia, to the extreme complexity of addressing barriers to that freedom on a case-by-case basis. To concede that the ‘prohibited’ requirements under Article 14 of that directive may nevertheless be justified on the basis of primary law would in fact be tantamount to reintroducing such case-by-case examination, under the FEU Treaty, for all restrictions on freedom of establishment.

55 Under such circumstances, the EU legislature had to take account of the precautionary principle, according to which, where there is uncertainty as to the existence or extent of risks to human health, protective measures may be taken without having to wait until the reality and seriousness of those risks become fully apparent. Where it proves to be impossible to determine with certainty the existence or extent of the alleged risk because of the insufficiency, inconclusiveness or imprecision of the results of studies conducted, but the likelihood of real harm to public health persists should the risk materialise, the precautionary principle justifies the adoption of restrictive measures (judgment in Neptune Distribution, C‑157/14, EU:C:2015:823, paragraphs 81 and 82).

91. It should however be recalled, first, that, as the Court of Justice has repeatedly held, the requirement that the Court of First Instance give reasons for its decisions cannot be interpreted as meaning that it is obliged to respond in detail to every single argument advanced by the appellant, particularly if the argument was not sufficiently clear and precise (see, inter alia, Case C-274/99 P Connolly v Commission [2001] ECR I‑1611, paragraph 121; Case C-197/99 P Belgium v Commission [2003] ECR I‑8461, paragraph 81; and Technische Glaswerke Ilmenau v Commission , paragraph 90).

81. It is true that, although the Court of First Instance is required to give reasons for its decisions, it is not obliged to respond in detail to every single argument advanced by a party, particularly if the argument is not sufficiently clear and precise and was not adequately supported by evidence (see to that effect Case C-274/99 P Connolly v Commission [2001] ECR I-1611, paragraph 121).

30. The Fourth Directive bases that coordination of the content of annual accounts on the principle that a true and fair view must be given, compliance with which is its primary objective ( Tomberger , paragraph 17; DE + ES Bauunternehmung , paragraph 26; and BIAO , paragraph 72). According to that principle, contained in Article 2(3) to (5) of that directive, annual accounts must give a true and fair view of the assets, financial position and the profit and loss of the company.

73. Next, it should be borne in mind that, under Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, the principle of effective judicial protection does not afford a right of access to a second level of jurisdiction but only to a court or tribunal (see judgment in Sánchez Morcillo and Abril García , C‑169/14, EU:C:2014:2099, paragraph 36).

36. In that connection, it should be observed that, according to EU law, the principle of effective judicial protection does not afford a right of access to a second level of jurisdiction but only to a court or tribunal (see, to that effect, judgment in Samba Diouf , C‑69/10, EU:C:2011:524, paragraph 69). Consequently, the fact that the only remedy available to the consumer, as a debtor against whom mortgage enforcement proceedings are brought, is to bring an action before a single jurisdictional level in order to protect the rights derived from Directive 93/13 is not, in itself, contrary to EU law.

S’agissant des véhicules automobiles pris en crédit-bail ou en location par un résident d’un État membre auprès d’un fournisseur établi dans un autre État, la Cour a déjà jugé, à propos d’une taxe à la consommation autrichienne, liée à une obligation d’immatriculation de véhicules loués dans un autre État membre, qu’une telle taxe est contraire au principe de proportionnalité dans la mesure où l’objectif qu’elle poursuit pourrait être atteint par l’instauration d’une taxe proportionnelle à la durée de l’immatriculation du véhicule dans l’État où il est utilisé, ce qui permettrait de ne pas opérer de discrimination quant à l’amortissement de la taxe au détriment des entreprises de crédit-bail automobile établies dans d’autres États (voir arrêt Cura Anlagen, C‑451/99, EU:C:2002:195, point 69, et ordonnance van de Coevering, C‑242/05, EU:C:2006:430, point 27).

37. In this respect, it should be observed that, as regards in particular the Internet, the Court has already had occasion to state that the operation of loading personal data on an Internet page must be considered to be ‘processing’ within the meaning of Article 2(b) of Directive 95/46 (judgments in Lindqvist , C‑101/01, EU:C:2003:596, paragraph 25, and Google Spain and Google , C‑131/12, EU:C:2014:317, paragraph 26).

26. As regards in particular the internet, the Court has already had occasion to state that the operation of loading personal data on an internet page must be considered to be such ‘processing’ within the meaning of Article 2(b) of Directive 95/46 (see Case C‑101/01 Lindqvist EU:C:2003:596, paragraph 25).

81 This difference in treatment between a Member State's own nationals and those of other Member States derives from a principle of international law which precludes a Member State from refusing its own nationals the right to enter its territory and remain there for any reason, and which the Treaty cannot be assumed to disregard in the context of relations between Member States (Van Duyn, cited above, paragraph 22, and Pereira Roque, cited above, paragraph 38).

68. A corollary of the principle of respect for the rights of the defence, the right of access to the file means that the Commission must give the undertaking concerned the opportunity to examine all the documents in the investigation file which may be relevant for its defence (see, to that effect, Case T-30/91 Solvay v Commission [1995] ECR II-1775, paragraph 81, and Case C-199/99 P Corus UK v Commission [2003] ECR I-0000, paragraphs 125 to 128). Those documents include both incriminating evidence and exculpatory evidence, save where the business secrets of other undertakings, the internal documents of the Commission or other confidential information are involved (see Case 85/76 Hoffmann-La Roche v Commission [1979] ECR 461, paragraphs 9 and 11; Case C-51/92 P Hercules Chemicals v Commission [1999] ECR I-4235, paragraph 75; and Joined Cases C-238/99 P, C-244/99 P, C-245/99 P, C-247/99 P, C-250/99 P to C-252/99 P and C-254/99 P Limburgse Vinyl Maatschappij and Others v Commission [2002] ECR I-8375, paragraph 315).

128. In such a case, the infringement committed is not remedied by the mere fact that access to the file was made possible during the judicial proceedings relating to an action by which annulment of the contested decision is sought. Where access has been granted at that stage, the undertaking concerned does not have to show that, if it had had access to the non-disclosed documents, the Commission decision would have been different in content, but only that those documents could have been useful for its defence (see, to that effect, Hercules Chemicals , paragraphs 78, 80 and 81, and Limburgse Vinyl Maatschappij and Others , paragraph 318).

15. In that regard, it should be recalled that, in accordance with settled case-law, in proceedings under Article 267 TFEU, which are based on a clear separation of functions between the national courts and the Court of Justice, the national court alone has jurisdiction to find and assess the facts in the case before it and to interpret and apply national law. Similarly, it is solely for the national court, before which the dispute has been brought and which must assume responsibility for the judicial decision to be made, to determine, in the light of the particular circumstances of the case, both the need for and the relevance of the questions that it submits to the Court. Consequently, where the questions submitted concern the interpretation of European Union law, the Court is in principle bound to give a ruling (Case C-145/03 Keller [2005] ECR I-2529, paragraph 33; Case C-119/05 Lucchini [2007] ECR I-6199, paragraph 43; and Case C-11/07 Eckelkamp and Others [2008] ECR I-6845, paragraphs 27 and 32).

61 It should be noted that, according to the Court’s settled case-law, in the context of 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 national court with an answer which will be of use to it and enable it to determine the case before it (judgment of 11 September 2014, B., C‑394/13, EU:C:2014:2199, paragraph 21 and the case-law cited). Furthermore, the spirit of cooperation which must prevail in the preliminary ruling procedure requires the national court to have regard to the function entrusted to the Court of Justice, which is to assist in the administration of justice in the Member States and not to deliver advisory opinions on general or hypothetical questions (judgments of 12 June 2003, Schmidberger, C‑112/00, EU:C:2003:333, paragraph 32 and of 26 February 2013, Åkerberg Fransson, C‑617/10, EU:C:2013:105, paragraph 42).

21. It should be observed as a preliminary point that, in the context of 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 national court with an answer which will be of use to it and enable it to determine the case before it. In that light, the Court may have to reformulate the questions referred to it (the judgments in Krüger , C‑334/95, EU:C:1997:378, paragraphs 22 and 23, and Hewlett-Packard Europe , C‑361/11, EU:C:2013:18, paragraph 35).

45. As regards, first, the principle of proportionality, it must be noted that the Court has already had occasion to find, in Case C-344/04 IATA and ELFAA [2010] ECR I-403, paragraphs 78 to 92, that Articles 5 to 7 of Regulation No 261/2004 are not invalid by reason of infringement of the principle of proportionality.

23. The Court held, in paragraph 18 of Miethe, that the objective pursued by Article 71(1)(a)(ii) of Regulation No 1408/71, concerning frontier workers who are wholly unemployed, that is to ensure that migrant workers receive unemployment benefit under the most favourable conditions, cannot however be attained where a wholly unemployed frontier worker has in exceptional circumstances maintained in the Member State in which he was last employed personal and business links of such a nature as to give him a better chance of finding new employment there. Such a worker must therefore be regarded as a ‘worker other than a frontier worker’ within the meaning of Article 71 of that regulation and is consequently covered by Article 71(1)(b). The worker may accordingly choose to make himself available to the employment services of the Member State where he was last employed and receive aid from that State, in the form both of assistance in finding employment and of payment of benefit.

18 HOWEVER , THE OBJECTIVE PURSUED BY ARTICLE 71 ( 1 ) ( A ) ( II ) OF REGULATION NO 1408/71 CANNOT BE ACHIEVED WHERE A WHOLLY UNEMPLOYED WORKER , ALTHOUGH HE SATISFIES THE CRITERIA LAID DOWN IN ARTICLE 1 ( B ) OF THAT REGULATION , HAS IN EXCEPTIONAL CIRCUMSTANCES MAINTAINED IN THE MEMBER STATE IN WHICH HE WAS LAST EMPLOYED PERSONAL AND BUSINESS LINKS OF SUCH A NATURE AS TO GIVE HIM A BETTER CHANCE OF FINDING NEW EMPLOYMENT THERE . SUCH A WORKER MUST THEREFORE BE REGARDED AS A WORKER ' OTHER THAN A FRONTIER WORKER ' WITHIN THE MEANING OF ARTICLE 71 AND CONSEQUENTLY COMES WITHIN THE SCOPE OF ARTICLE 71 ( 1 ) ( B ).

32. Indeed, this third category is particularly intended to cover national measures which leave no room for any use which can reasonably be made of the product concerned other than a purely marginal one ( Lindberg , paragraph 77).

27. As a preliminary point, it must be recalled, that, according to settled case-law, in the absence of unifying or harmonising measures adopted by the Community, the Member States remain competent to determine the criteria for taxation of income and wealth with a view to eliminating double taxation by means inter alia of international agreements (see, in particular, Case C-307/97 Saint-Gobain ZN [1999] ECR I-6161, paragraph 57; Case C-290/04 FKP Scorpio Konzertproduktionen [2006] ECR I-9461, paragraph 54; and Case C-374/04 Test Claimants in Class IV of the ACT Group Litigation [2006] ECR I-11673, paragraph 52).

54. It should be recalled, first, that, according to settled case-law, in the absence of unifying or harmonising measures adopted by the Community, the Member States remain competent to determine the criteria for taxation of income and wealth with a view to eliminating double taxation by means inter alia of international agreements (see Case C‑307/97 Saint-Gobain [1999] ECR I‑6161, paragraph 57).

72. However, it cannot be accepted that a communication submitted by the Commission together with a draft directive, even where that communication is mentioned in the recitals in the preamble to that directive, gave rise to a legitimate expectation that the policies contained in it would be adhered to, where it is clear from Article 189a of the EC Treaty (now Article 250 EC) and Article 189c of the EC Treaty that the Commission may amend such a proposal at any time and that the Council may adopt an act constituting an amendment to the proposal (see, to that effect, Joined Cases C-13/92 to C-16/92 Driessen and Others [1993] ECR I-4751, paragraph 33), which is in fact the position in this case as regards the conditions in which a derogation may be authorised for the use of heavy fuel oils with a content of more than 1% by mass.

81. The Court has held that it results from paragraphs 49 to 52 of the judgment in Case C‑503/99 Commission v Belgium that the national scheme at issue was characterised by the fact that it specifically listed the strategic assets concerned and the management decisions which could be challenged in any given case. Finally, the intervention by the administrative authorities was strictly limited to cases in which the objectives of the energy policy were jeopardised. Any decision taken in that context had to be supported by a formal statement of reasons and was subject to an effective review by the courts (judgment in Case C‑463/00 Commission v Spain , paragraph 78).

78. In that regard, it is clear from paragraphs 49 to 52 of Commission v Belgium , first, that the system examined in that judgment was one of ex post facto opposition, which is less restrictive than a system of prior approval such as that in the present case (see, to that effect, Joined Cases C-515/99, C-519/99 to C-524/99 and C-526/99 to C-540/99 Reisch and Others [2002] ECR I-2157, paragraph 37). Furthermore, a feature of the Belgian system was that it listed specifically the strategic assets concerned and the management decisions which could be challenged in any given case. Finally, any intervention by the administrative authorities was strictly limited to cases in which the objectives of the energy policy were jeopardised. Any decision taken in that context had to be supported by a formal statement of reasons and was subject to an effective review by the courts.

17 It is settled case-law that, in the interests of legal certainty and ease of verification, the decisive criterion for the classification of goods for customs purposes is in general to be sought in their objective characteristics and properties as defined in the wording of the relevant heading of the CN (see, with regard to the CCT, Case C-459/93 Hauptzollamt Hamburg-St Annen v Thyssen Haniel Logistic [1995] ECR I-1381, paragraph 8, and Joined Cases C-106/94 and C-139/94 Colin and Dupré [1995] ECR I-4759, paragraph 22). There are also explanatory notes drawn up, as regards the CN, by the European Commission and, as regards the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System, by the Customs Cooperation Council, which may be an important aid to the interpretation of the scope of the various tariff headings but do not have legally binding force (Case C-35/93 Develop Dr Eisbein v Hauptzollamt Stuttgart-West [1994] ECR I-2655, paragraph 21, and Colin and Dupré, cited above, paragraph 21).

40. In that regard, it should be noted that the right to deduct provided for in Article 167 et seq. of Directive 2006/112 is an integral part of the VAT scheme and in principle may not be limited. The right to deduct is exercisable immediately in respect of all the taxes charged on transactions relating to inputs (Case C‑368/09 Pannon Gép Centrum [2010] ECR I‑0000, paragraph 37 and the case-law cited).

37. In that regard, it must be recalled that the right to deduct provided for in Article 167 et seq. of Directive 2006/112 is an integral part of the VAT scheme and in principle may not be limited. The right to deduct is exercisable immediately in respect of all the taxes charged on transactions relating to inputs (see, inter alia, Case C‑62/93 BP Soupergaz [1995] ECR I‑1883, paragraph 18; Joined Cases C‑110/98 to C‑147/98 Gabalfrisa and Others [2000] ECR I‑1577, paragraph 43, and Joined Cases C‑439/04 and C‑440/04 Kittel and Recolta Recycling [2006] ECR I‑6161, paragraph 47).

36. It should be borne in mind that funds which constitute undertakings for collective investment in transferable securities within the meaning of the UCITS Directive are special investment funds (see, to that effect, in particular judgments in Deutsche Bank , C‑44/11, EU:C:2012:484, paragraph 32; Wheels Common Investment Fund Trustees and Others , C‑424/11, EU:C:2013:144, paragraph 23; and ATP PensionService , C‑464/12, EU:C:2014:139, paragraph 46). As is clear from Article 1(2) of that directive, undertakings for collective investment in transferable securities are undertakings the sole object of which is the collective investment in transferable securities of capital raised from the public and which operate on the principle of risk-spreading, and the units of which are, at the request of holders, re-purchased or redeemed, directly or indirectly, out of those undertakings’ assets.

83 Since these proceedings are, for the parties to the main proceedings, a step in the action pending before the national court, the decision on costs is a matter for that court. Costs incurred in submitting observations to the Court, other than the costs of those parties, are not recoverable.

28. On that point, the Court has consistently held that, if the wording of secondary Community law is open to more than one interpretation, preference should be given to the interpretation which renders the provision consistent with the EC Treaty rather than to the interpretation which leads to its being incompatible with the Treaty (see Case 218/82 Commission v Council [1983] ECR 4063, paragraph 15, and Case C‑135/93 Spain v Commission [1995] ECR I‑1651, paragraph 37). Member States must not only interpret their national law in a manner consistent with Community law but also make sure they do not rely on an interpretation of wording of secondary legislation which would be in conflict with the fundamental rights protected by the Community legal order or with the other general principles of Community law (Case C‑101/01 Lindqvist [2003] ECR I‑12971, paragraph 87).

19. In numerous cases, the Court has defined the concept of the letting of immovable property within the meaning of Article 13B(b) of the Sixth Directive as essentially the conferring by a landlord on a tenant, for an agreed period and in return for payment, of the right to occupy property as if that person were the owner and to exclude any other person from enjoyment of such a right (see, to that effect, Goed Wonen , paragraph 55; Case C-409/98 Mirror Group [2001] ECR I-7175, paragraph 31; Case C-108/99 Cantor Fitzgerald International [2001] ECR I-7257, paragraph 21; Case C-269/00 Seeling [2003] ECR I-4101, paragraph 49; and Sinclair Collis , paragraph 25).

48 On the other hand, any rules of evidence which have the effect of making it virtually impossible or excessively difficult to secure repayment of charges levied in breach of Community law are incompatible with Community law. That is so particularly in the case of presumptions or rules of evidence intended to place upon the taxpayer the burden of establishing that the charges unduly paid have not been passed on to other persons or of special limitations concerning the form of the evidence to be adduced, such as the exclusion of any kind of evidence other than documentary evidence (San Giorgio, cited above, paragraph 14, and Joined Cases 331/85, 376/85 and 378/85 Bianco and Girard v Directeur Général des Douanes et Droits Indirects [1988] ECR 1099, paragraph 12).

12 ON THIS POINT IT SHOULD BE BORNE IN MIND THAT, AS THE COURT HELD IN ITS JUDGMENT OF 9 NOVEMBER 1983 IN CASE 199/82 AMMINISTRAZIONE DELLE FINANZE DELLO STATO V SAN GIORGIO SPA (( 1983 )) ECR 3595 ), ANY REQUIREMENT OF PROOF WHICH HAS THE EFFECT OF MAKING IT VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE OR EXCESSIVELY DIFFICULT TO SECURE THE REPAYMENT OF CHARGES LEVIED CONTRARY TO COMMUNITY LAW IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH COMMUNITY LAW, AND THAT THIS IS SO IN PARTICULAR IN THE CASE OF PRESUMPTIONS OR RULES OF EVIDENCE DESIGNED TO PLACE ON THE TAXPAYER THE BURDEN OF ESTABLISHING THAT THE UNDULY PAID CHARGES HAVE NOT BEEN PASSED ON TO OTHER PERSONS .

45. As regards, first, the principle of proportionality, it must be noted that the Court has already had occasion to find, in Case C-344/04 IATA and ELFAA [2010] ECR I-403, paragraphs 78 to 92, that Articles 5 to 7 of Regulation No 261/2004 are not invalid by reason of infringement of the principle of proportionality.

165. The general principle of Community law that everyone is entitled to a fair hearing, and in particular the right to legal process within a reasonable period, is applicable in the context of proceedings brought against a Commission decision imposing fines on an undertaking for infringement of competition law (Baustahlgewebe , cited above, paragraph 21, and Limburgse Vinyl Maatschappij , paragraph 179).

21 The general principle of Community law that everyone is entitled to fair legal process, which is inspired by those fundamental rights (see in particular Opinion 2/94 [1996] ECR I-1759, paragraph 33, and judgment in Case C-299/95 Kremzow [1997] ECR I-2629, paragraph 14), and in particular the right to legal process within a reasonable period, is applicable in the context of proceedings brought against a Commission decision imposing fines on an undertaking for infringement of competition law.

43. According to settled case-law, the term ‘presentation’ of a product must be interpreted broadly. It must be recalled, in that connection, that by basing its arguments on the criterion of the ‘presentation’ of the product, Directive 2001/83 intends to cover not only medicinal products having a genuine therapeutic or medical effect, but also those which are not sufficiently effective or do not have the effect which consumers would be entitled to expect from the way in which they are presented. The directive thereby intends to protect the consumer not only from harmful or toxic medicinal products, but also from a variety of products used instead of the proper remedies ( van Bennekom , paragraph 17).

10 Access to and the exercise of certain self-employed activities may thus be conditional on compliance with provisions laid down by law, regulation or administrative action justified by the general interest, such as rules relating to organization, qualifications, professional ethics, supervision and liability (judgments in Case 71/76 Thieffry v Conseil de l' Ordre des Avocats à la Cour de Paris [1977] ECR 765, paragraph 12, and Case C-55/94 Gebhard v Consiglio dell' Ordine degli Avvocati e Procuratori di Milano [1995] ECR I-4165, paragraph 35). Those provisions may stipulate in particular that the exercise of a specific activity is restricted to persons presenting certain guarantees and subject to particular rules or supervision.

12 THAT ARTICLE IS THEREFORE DIRECTED TOWARDS RECONCILING FREEDOM OF ESTABLISHMENT WITH THE APPLICATION OF NATIONAL PROFESSIONAL RULES JUSTIFIED BY THE GENERAL GOOD , IN PARTICULAR RULES RELATING TO ORGANIZATION , QUALIFICATIONS , PROFESSIONAL ETHICS , SUPERVISION AND LIABILITY , PROVIDED THAT SUCH APPLICATION IS EFFECTED WITHOUT DISCRIMINATION . THIEFFRY V CONSEIL DE L ' ORDRE DES AVOCATS A LA COUR DE PARIS

45. However, the social aim of an insurance scheme is not in itself sufficient to preclude the activity in question from being classified as an economic activity (see, to that effect, Albany , paragraph 86; Pavlov and Others , paragraph 118; Cisal , paragraph 37; and Kattner Stahlbau , paragraph 42).

31. The Court has also held that the benefit of stable employment is viewed as a major element in the protection of workers (see Mangold , paragraph 64, and Adeneler and Others , paragraph 62). It deduced therefrom that the Framework Agreement seeks to place limits on successive use of fixed-term employment contracts, which is regarded as a potential source of abuse to the disadvantage of workers, by laying down as a minimum a number of protective provisions designed to prevent the status of employees from being insecure (see Adeneler and Others , paragraph 63).

63. From this angle, the Framework Agreement seeks to place limits on successive recourse to the latter category of employment relationship, a category regarded as a potential source of abuse to the disadvantage of workers, by laying down as a minimum a number of protective provisions designed to prevent the status of employees from being insecure.

11 The Court rejected those arguments and held that the only possible decisive criterion was whether the pension was paid to the worker by reason of the employment relationship between him and his former employer, that is to say, the criterion of employment based on the wording of Article 119 of the Treaty itself (Evrenopoulos, paragraph 19).

19. According to settled case-law, the essential feature of an employment relationship resides in the fact that for a certain period of time a person performs services for and under the direction of another person, in return for which he receives remuneration (see, in particular, Case 66/85 Lawrie-Blum [1986] ECR 2121, paragraphs 16 and 17; Case C-85/96 Martínez Sala [1998] ECR I-2691, paragraph 32, and Case C-43/99 Leclere and Deaconescu [2001] ECR I-4265, paragraph 55). It is common ground that, in the main proceedings, there was no employment relationship, within the meaning of that case-law, between the defendants and Alpina.

55 It should be recalled that, in the context of Article 48 of the Treaty and Regulation No 1612/68, a person who, for a certain period of time, performs services for and under the direction of another person in return for which he receives remuneration must be considered to be a worker. Once the employment relationship has ended, the person concerned as a rule loses his status of worker, although that status may produce certain effects after the relationship has ended, and a person who is genuinely seeking work must also be classified as a worker (see, to that effect, Case 66/85 Lawrie-Blum [1986] ECR 2121, paragraph 17, Case 39/86 Lair [1988] ECR 3161, paragraphs 31 to 36, and Case C-85/96 Martínez Sala [1998] ECR I-2691, paragraph 32).

29 As to the nature of that link, it may be seen from the wording of most language versions of point 14 of Annex I to Directive 2005/29 that the funding of the compensation that a consumer may receive depends ‘primarily’ or ‘mostly’ on the contributions subsequently paid by new participants in the scheme (see judgment of 3 April 2014, 4finance, C‑515/12, EU:C:2014:211, paragraph 28).

82. Thus, the Court has held that if a national law merely encourages or makes it easier for undertakings to engage in autonomous anti-competitive conduct, those undertakings remain subject to Articles 81 EC and 82 EC (Joined Cases 40/73 to 48/73, 50/73, 54/73 to 56/73, 111/73, 113/73 and 114/73 Suiker Unie and Others v Commission [1975] ECR 1663, paragraphs 36 to 73, and CIF , paragraph 56).

45 THE CLEAR OBJECTIVE OF THE INVITATIONS TO TENDER AND IMPORTS OUTSIDE THESE INVITATIONS TO TENDER WAS ONLY TO PERMIT THE QUANTITY OF SUGAR TO BE IMPORTED WHICH WAS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY TO MAKE GOOD THE AMOUNT BY WHICH NATIONAL PRODUCTION FELL SHORT OF DEMAND .

19. However, the Court stated that neither Article 10 of Directive 2003/87 nor any other provision of the directive concerns the use of those emission allowances or expressly restricts the right of Member States to adopt measures which may affect the economic implications of using such allowances (judgment in Iberdrola and Others , EU:C:2013:660, paragraph 28).

44. As regards, next, the argument that the Kingdom of the Netherlands is, by its first ground of appeal, seeking to put findings of fact in issue, it is sufficient to observe that such is not the case. In fact, the Kingdom of the Netherlands is in no way challenging the Court of First Instance’s findings in that context, from which it is clear, in particular, that the data for the year 2004 was incorporated in the TNO’s report and that the Commission, apart from that report, also took account of the MNP’s report. On the other hand, that Member State does challenge the conclusions which the Court of First Instance drew from those findings of fact. The question whether the Court of First Instance could, properly in law, conclude from those facts that the Commission failed neither in its duty of care nor in its duty to state reasons for its decisions, is a question of law subject to the review of the Court of Justice on appeal (see Case C‑188/96 P Commission v V [1997] ECR I‑6561, paragraph 24, and Joined Cases C‑189/02 P, C‑202/02 P, C‑205/02 P to C‑208/02 P and C‑213/02 P Dansk Rørindustri and Others v Commission [2005] ECR I‑5425, paragraph 453).

453. In that regard, it must be borne in mind, first of all, that according to the case-law of the Court, the extent of the obligation to state reasons is a question of law reviewable by the Court on appeal, since a review of the legality of a decision carried out in that context must necessarily take into consideration the facts on which the Court of First Instance based itself in reaching its conclusion as to the adequacy or inadequac y of the statement of reasons (see to that effect Case C-188/96 P Commission v V [1997] ECR I-6561, paragraph 24).

102. Lastly, in the event that the dominant undertaking were nonetheless to apply a price on the retail market which was so low that sales would engender losses, beyond the fact that such conduct is likely to constitute an autonomous form of abuse, namely the application of predatory prices, the Court has in any event already rejected the argument that, even in such a case, proof of the possibility of recoupment of losses suffered by the application, by an undertaking in a dominant position, of prices lower than a certain level of costs constitutes a necessary precondition to establishing that such a pricing policy is abusive (see, to that effect, France Télécom v Commission , paragraph 110).

12 In its judgment of 13 May 1986 in Case 170/84 Bilka-Kaufhaus GmbH v Hartz [1986] ECR 1607, the Court has already held that if a pension scheme, although adopted in accordance with the provisions laid down by national legislation, is based on an agreement with the employees or their representatives and if the public authorities are not involved in its funding, such a scheme does not constitute a social security scheme governed directly by statute and thus falls outside the scope of Article 119, and that benefits paid to employees under the scheme constitute consideration received by the employees from the employer in respect of their employment, as referred to in the second paragraph of Article 119 (paragraphs 20 and 22).

20 IL Y A LIEU , A CET EGARD , DE SOULIGNER QUE , COMME IL RESSORT DU DOSSIER , LE REGIME DE PENSIONS D ' ENTREPRISE EN CAUSE DANS LE LITIGE PRINCIPAL , MEME S ' IL A ETE ADOPTE EN CONFORMITE AVEC LES DISPOSITIONS PREVUES PAR LE LEGISLATEUR ALLEMAND QUANT AUX REGIMES DU MEME TYPE , TROUVE SA SOURCE DANS UN ACCORD , INTERVENU ENTRE BILKA ET LE CONSEIL D ' ENTREPRISE REPRESENTANT SES EMPLOYES , AYANT POUR EFFET DE COMPLETER LES PRESTATIONS SOCIALES DUES EN VERTU DE LA LEGISLATION NATIONALE D ' APPLICATION GENERALE PAR DES PRESTATIONS DONT LE FINANCEMENT EST SUPPORTE UNIQUEMENT PAR L ' EMPLOYEUR .

26 Consequently, the imposition of such a condition, which specifically affects companies or firms having their seat in another Member State, is in principle prohibited by Article 52 of the Treaty. It could only be otherwise if the measure pursued a legitimate aim compatible with the Treaty and were justified by pressing reasons of public interest. Even if that were so, it would still have to be of such a nature as to ensure achievement of the aim in question and not go beyond what was necessary for that purpose (see, to this effect, the judgments in Case C-55/94 Gebhard [1995] ECR I-4165, paragraph 37; in Case C-19/92 Kraus [1993] ECR I-1663, paragraph 32; and in Case C-415/93 Bosman [1995] ECR I-4921, paragraph 104).