Fedespedi, the federation of Italian shipping companies, joined the appeal of 18 trade associations representatives of the logistics sector at European level, including CLECAT, the European federation of reference for freight forwarders, who in recent days have expressed their support for the petition submitted to the European Parliament by the Danish association Danish Shipping and urged Member States and the European Commission to revise the VAT Committee Guidelines ( of 6 July 2023). "We make our own and support - he explained the president of Fedespedi, Alessandro Pitto - this invitation to the institutions to revise the VAT Committee Guidelines to bring clarity of interpretation of the legislation governing the VAT system for international transport services. Following the enactment of the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union (case C-288/16) - specified Pitto - a rift has been created at the level of practice in the EU between Member States that have maintained the previous interpretative approach and other countries that have oriented towards a more restrictive system of the non-restrictive Taxability in line with the new dictation case-law'.

'As underlined in the Joint Declaration at European - added the president of Fedespedi - the effects the restrictive interpretation of the VAT rules together with the lack of clarity of interpretation and lack of harmonisation at EU level leads to distortions of trade, costs and inefficiencies along the supply chain, which open up the risk of fraud and penalize trade flows, competitiveness of our exports and European companies in trade and the Single Market, the beating heart of the Union European'.

The Italian federation has highlighted that "it is for these reasons that the petition, strengthened by the provisions of the Code Union customs and subsequent Union case-law Court of Justice (including judgment C-495/17), asks the European Parliament to revise the Guidelines of the VAT Committee of the 2019 and to affirm the extension of VAT non-taxation for the entire transport chain that contributes to the realization international shipping operations. The petition, discussed at the end of June, saw opposition from the Commission European. The Parliamentary Committee on Petitions, on the other hand, has invited all Member States to work on the revision of the VAT Guidelines'.

"As a Federation - concluded Pitto - we align ourselves with the position shared by the European associative representatives and We confirm our willingness to work alongside of the institutions in a confrontation that favours uniformity and clarity of interpretation on the VAT rules for the benefit of competitiveness of the European Union and trade international'.