The dynamics of EU corporate tax law have shifted in recent decades. While the fundamental freedoms of the EU once seemed to protect taxpayers from domestic anti-abuse measures, recent EU initiatives in the area of corporate tax law and, not least, the case law of the European Court of Justice point in the opposite direction. In the midst of the increasing pace of corporate tax harmonization within the EU, there are sometimes decades-old tax treaties concluded by member states that increasingly conflict with EU measures. This raises the general question of the relationship between tax treaties and EU law and, in particular, how EU law influences the abuse of tax treaties in general. Valentin Bendlinger’s contribution aims to examine the impact of EU law on bilateral tax treaties and their abuse.
