Excursus: A Fiscal Affairs Exception?
Ever since 1957, the European Treaties made, with regard to goods, a fundamental distinction between regulatory and fiscal barriers to intra-Union trade. Fiscal barriers were here subject to a special constitutional regime. This constitutional regime was however not uniform and itself distinguished between (external) customs duties and (internal) taxes with both aspects being firmly rooted in an international model. Has this changed over the course of the past sixty years? Have the Treaty provisions on fiscal barriers been ‘federalized’and, if so, are they nonetheless subject to distinct doctrinal principles (like in the United States)? This final chapter explores these complex questions. Section I starts with an analysis of the legal structure of the customs union; Section II looks at the question from the point of ‘internal taxation’, and here in particular the question of double taxation.