Communication in accordance with Article 395 of Council Directive 2006/112/EC

In accordance with Article 395 of Council Directive 2006/112/EC of 28 November 2006 on the common system of value added tax (the VAT Directive) the Council, acting unanimously on a proposal from the Commission, may authorise any Member State to apply special measures for derogation from that Directive in order to simplify the procedure for charging the tax or to prevent certain types of tax evasion or avoidance. As this procedure provides for derogations from the general principles of VAT, in accordance with the consistent rulings from the European Court of Justice, such derogations should be limited in scope and proportionate.

By letter registered with the Commission on 23 October 2012, Romania has requested to be authorised to continue a measure derogating from Article 193 of the VAT Directive. In accordance with Article 395(2) of that Directive, the Commission informed the other Member States by letter dated 18 January 2013 of the request made by Romania. By letter dated 22 January 2013, the Commission notified Romania that it had all the information it considered necessary for appraisal of the request.

Romania requests to be authorised to continue to apply the reverse charge mechanism in relation to certain cereals and oilseeds for which it previously obtained a derogation.

This derogation was granted by the Council under very specific circumstances, under which Romania committed itself to implement, during the application period of the said derogation, a series of reforms which would make it possible to revert to the normal system after this transitional period of time.

This approach was notably justified by the risk of fraud moving to other Member States in a sector whose economic importance is quite substantial in several Member States.

EUR-Lex: COM(2013)105: Follow the progress of this communication through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2013:105:FIN

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