In circumstances such as those of the case before the referring court, Articles 43 EC and 48 EC (now Articles 49 TFEU and 54 TFEU) preclude a requirement that, for the purposes of a consortium relief scheme, the link company be either resident in the Member State concerned or carrying on a trade in that Member State through a permanent establishment situated there. However, those articles do not prevent national legislation from requiring that the lowest common parent within the group of companies to which the link company and the companies receiving the losses for tax purposes belong be resident in one of the Member States or in a country belonging to the European Economic Area, and that the connections between the link company and the companies receiving the losses for tax purposes consist solely of such companies.