European Court of Justice 21 June 1988. Certain goods and services were zero-rated for the purposes of VAT by Value Added Tax Act 1983 s16(2) . The EC Commission regarded this as not conforming to the derogations from the Sixth Council Directive article 28(2) (77/388/EEC) on the harmonisation of laws relating to VAT in that the provisions of the Act had not been `taken for clearly defined social reasons and for the benefit of the final consumer.` The items listed in the Act had not been agreed between the Commission and the UK government and therefore the Commission instituted proceedings on the grounds that the UK had failed to fulfil obligations under the EEC Treaty. The UK Government challenged the motive of the Commission in instituting proceedings. It was held that identification of `social reasons` for the purposes of the directive was essentially a matter for member states and was subject to supervision by the Community Institutions only in so far as the effective objective of