European Union – Internal taxation. The Court of Justice of the European Union gave a preliminary ruling in which it decided that art 56 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and art 36 of the Agreement on the Economic European Area had to be interpreted as precluding national legislation, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, which provided for a national tax exemption system which imposed conditions for access to the Belgian banking market on service providers established in other member states, that being a matter for the referring court to verify.