This is an Opinion Statement on the concept of abuse in European law. This Opinion Statement tries to reconstruct such a concept not on the basis of one single judgment, but rather by taking into account the various relevant statements made by the European Court of Justice in respect of abuse throughout the past decades, with special emphasis on the direct tax and VAT cases. The Confédération Fiscale Européenne (CFE) is the leading European association of 29 national tax advisory organizations representing over 160,000 tax advisers.