Opinion of Advocate General Wathelet in the case London Borough of Ealing.
Wathelet proposes that the Court should answer the questions for preliminary ruling as follows:
1. Point (d) of the first paragraph and the second paragraph of Article 133 of Council Directive 2006/112/EC must be interpreted as meaning that it allows Member States to impose the condition relating to competition on non-profit-making bodies governed by public law even if sporting services other than those that were subject to VAT on 1 January 1989 were granted exemption on that date and even if the sporting services in question were not granted exemption under national law before the Member State applied the condition laid down in point (d) of the first paragraph of Article 133 of Directive 2006/112.
2. Point (d) of the first paragraph and the second paragraph of Article 133 of Directive 2006/112 must be interpreted as meaning that a Member State which, pursuant to Directive 77/388/EEC, on 1 January 1989 applied VAT to sporting services can make the grant of the exemption from VAT to non-profit-making bodies governed by public law subject to the condition relating to competition laid down in point (d) of the first paragraph of Article 133 of that directive only when it also applies that condition to the services supplied by other non-profit-making bodies.
3. The second paragraph of Article 133 of Directive 2006/112 must be interpreted as meaning that it does not allow a Member State which, pursuant to Directive 77/388, on 1 January 1989 applied VAT to sporting services to exclude, generally, all non-profit-making bodies governed by public law from the benefit of the exemption of supplies of sporting services without having considered in each individual case whether the granting of that exemption would be likely to cause distortion of competition to the disadvantage of commercial enterprises subject to VAT.
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