Conference Report: ‘Court of Justice of the European Union: Recent VAT Case Law 2025’: Conference in Vienna: The General Court Steps into the Spotlight

From 22 to 24 January 2025 the annual Conference on ‘Recent VAT Case Law of the Court of Justice of the European Union’ was held in Vienna. There, the most important decided cases of the CJEU in the area of VAT of the past year (2024) were discussed by an international group of experts in the field. (The most important cases and topics will be critically discussed in the conference book, CJEU: Recent Developments in Value Added Tax 2024 (Kofler/Lang/Pistone/Rust/Schuch/Spies/Staringer/Szudoczky/ Sanchez eds., Linde, forthcoming)). Moreover, general developments, such as the reform to transfer the jurisdiction to give preliminary rulings in VAT cases from the Court of Justice to the General Court, (Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2024/2019 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 April 2024 amending Protocol No 3 on the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union.) took centre stage in the discussions between judges, academics, and representatives from tax authorities and businesses. This report examines the key insights from the conference’s opening address by Savvas Papasavvas, Vice-President of the General Court and president of its new preliminary ruling chamber, the ‘Spotlight Session’ on first impressions at the General Court presented by judges of the new preliminary ruling chamber, (Under the chairmanship of Prof. Karoline Spies, the participants in the discussion were three judges of the General Court who are members of the new chamber for preliminary rulings: Gerhard Hesse (Austria), Johannes Laitenberger (Germany) and Mirela Stancu (Romania).) and the concluding session, focusing on key trends and developments in European jurisprudence concerning VAT law. (The discussion was chaired by Prof. Karoline Spies, and participants in the discussion were Karl-Heinz Haydl (VAT practitioner and Chair of Business at OECD VAT/ GST), Prof. David Hummel (legal secretary of Advocate General Kokott at the CJEU) and Ine Lejeune (attorney at law).).