The Commission has referred the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Greece, Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain to the EU's Court of Justice for what it views as failure to properly implement EU VAT rules for travel agents. The rules in question are contained in VAT Directive 2006/112/EC, which has special provisions (the so-called “special margin scheme”) for travel agents when they sell travel packages to travellers. However, the Member States referred to Court on this matter have implemented these special provisions incorrectly, leading to distortions in competition between travel agents according to the Commission.

In 2006, the Commission analysed the application of the special margin scheme across the EU and found 13 Member States to be implementing it incorrectly. Since then, Cyprus, Hungary, Latvia, the Netherlands and the UK have changed their legislation to conform with the EU provisions. However, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Greece, Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain did not take the necessary measures, in the Commission's view, to amend their rules.

The Commission sent reasoned opinions to these Member States in February 2008.

Further details are available at http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/11/76&format=HTML&aged=0&language=en&guiLanguage=en