The free movement and registration of motor vehicles within the European Union

Abstract

Rather than being a purely theoretical academic exercise which attempts to cover all applicable rules and concepts in the field, this thesis focuses on the tangible legal issues as these have emerged in the real world. It is a European Union Law study on the rules relating to the free movement of motor vehicles within the Community in the light of the manner in which Member States are allowed to conduct themselves in the event of motor vehicles entering their territories. The emphasis is on car taxation. Particular importance is given to the requirement of registration and the fiscal charge that is often levied thereupon, hence the stress on car registration tax. Much of what is analysed, explained and discussed is relevant to several kinds of motor vehicles. However, this thesis is to be interpreted as focusing essentially on private passenger cars. I have chosen to direct the treatise in this manner since the bulk of controversies in the field of EU car taxation has precisely passenger cars as its protagonists. The first chapter considers motor vehicles as goods in trade, which should be moving freely from one Member State to another. Most of the space in this chapter is dedicated to the principle of non-discrimination as envisaged by Article 90 of the EC Treaty. Much of the content in this section relies extensively on European Court of Justice jurisprudence. Chapter II deals with the private passenger car as 'an extension of the individual' exercising his right to freedom of movement within the Community. Council Directives 83/182/EEC and 83/183/EEC form a large part of the discussion. I then extend the notion of :freedom of movement of persons to other basic :freedoms pledged by the Treaty. Here, ECJ case law is also cited comprehensively. A part which certainly could not be left out is the VAT aspect of intra-Community movement of motor vehicles and this is catered for in Chapter III. This is the only area of the subject where there actually is harmonisation at EU level. The recently recast 'VAT Directive' is at the heart of the discussion contained in this chapter. Chapter IV puts the subject at issue into the context of the contemporary challenge of environment protection. The rules on car taxation guaranteeing the :free movement of passenger cars at times tend to be in opposition with the needs to reduce pollution. This part attempts to strike a balance between the two equally important matters by making extensive reference to the Commission's proposal for a Directive on passenger car related taxes. Finally, Chapter V takes on a bird's eye view of the Maltese scenario and applies what is developed in the preceding chapters to our system of registration and licensing of private passenger cars. Malta has turned out to be a 'tailor-made' case study for the purposes of this thesis. Here, the focus is mainly on our new system following the 2009 amendments introduced by Act VI of 2009. This new system is often assessed in view of the pre-2009 regime by way of comparative analysis.