Interpreting European Law in the Light of the BEPS Action Plan

Abstract

European Law plays a major role in the implementation of the BEPS Action Plan by Member States of the European Union. How does this influence the interpretation of primary and secondary EU law? On the one hand, recent secondary legislation like the Anti-Tax-Avoidance Directives explicitly aims at a full and coherent introduction of BEPS outcome into European law. But this goal has to be aligned with the liberating forces of the Internal Market which inform the legal basis for directives under Art.115 TFEU. Going further, in some recent judgments, the European Court of Justice has shown a tendency to interpret also long-standing concepts of primary EU law (like the notion of abuse of law) and existing directives (like the Parent Subsidiary Directive or the Interest Royalty Directive) in the light of the BEPS Action Plan. This is hard to defend from a methodological point of view and out of sync with the fundamental policies adopted by the European Treaties.