Unanimously unconstitutional throughout' in full, the Plenum of the Supreme Court on Wednesday, November 30, 2022, ruled the Law passed by the House of Representatives, following the proposal of the Law entitled "The Law on Value Added Tax (Amendment) (No.6) Law of 2021" and concerns the reduction of VAT on electricity.
[/P]In its decision, the Supreme Court, which issued an opinion following a Petition of the President of the Republic, declared the law unconstitutional in its entirety, due to the fact that the Principle of Separation of Powers is violated, since the House of Representatives, by reducing the VAT on electricity by the Law at issue, the House of Representatives interfered with the power of the executive power to determine the transactions which will be subject to a reduced rate of VAT.
In particular, the Supreme Court agreed with the position of the Attorney General of the Republic that it is for the executive power, and in this case the Council of Ministers, to decide which transactions are subject to a reduced rate of VAT. The retention of such a power in the executive is necessary since the Ministry of Finance is responsible for consulting the VAT Committee at European level and for assessing the economic impact on public finances of subjecting certain transactions to a reduced rate of VAT. Such an assessment of the impact can only be made by the executive authority, since it must safeguard an important tax collected by the EU Member States and constitutes a resource of the European Union.
The Attorney General of the Republic was represented by the Assistant Attorney General of the Republic Mr. Savvas Angelides and Ms Elena Simeonidou, Senior Lawyer of the Republic.
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