(1) For the purposes of this Convention, unless the context otherwise requires:

• (a) the terms "a Contracting State" and "the other Contracting State" mean the Federal Republic of Germany or the Kingdom of the Netherlands (the Netherlands), as the context requires;
• (b) the term "Germany" means the Federal Republic of Germany and, when used in a geographical sense, the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany, as well as the area of the seabed, its subsoil and the superjacent water column adjacent to the territorial sea, wherein the Federal Republic of Germany exercises sovereign rights or jurisdiction in conformity with international law and its national legislation for the purpose of exploring, exploiting, conserving and managing the living and non-living natural resources or for the production of energy from renewable sources;
• (c) the term "the Netherlands" means the European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, including its territorial sea, and any area beyond and adjacent to the territorial sea within which the Netherlands, in accordance with international law and its own laws, exercises jurisdiction or sovereign rights for the purpose of exploring, exploiting, conserving and managing the living and non-living natural resources or for the production of energy from renewable sources;
• (d) the term "person" includes an individual, a company and any other body of persons;
• (e) the term "company" means any body corporate or any entity which is treated as a body corporate for tax purposes;
• (f) the term "enterprise" applies to the carrying on of any business;
• (g) the term "business" includes the performance of professional services and of other activities of an independent character;
• (h) the terms "enterprise of a Contracting State" and "enterprise of the other Contracting State" mean respectively an enterprise carried on by a resident of a Contracting State and an enterprise carried on by a resident of the other Contracting State;
• (i) the term "international traffic" means any transport by a ship or aircraft operated by an enterprise that has its place of effective management in a Contracting State, except when the ship or aircraft is operated solely between places in the other Contracting State;
• (j) the term "cross-border economic area" means a physically defined area extending over both Netherlands and German territory and through which the common border of both Contracting States runs, provided that the Contracting States have mutually designated the area to be a cross-border economic area;
• (k) the term "national" means:
  • (aa) in relation to the Federal Republic of Germany any German within the meaning of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany and any legal person, partnership and association deriving its status as such from the laws in force in the Federal Republic of Germany;
  • (bb) in relation to the Netherlands any individual possessing the nationality of the Netherlands and any legal person, partnership or association deriving its status as such from the laws in force in the Netherlands;
• (l) the term "competent authority" means:
  • (aa) in the case of the Federal Republic of Germany the Federal Ministry of Finance or the agency to which it has delegated its powers;
  • (bb) in the case of the Netherlands the Minister of Finance or his authorised representative.

(2) As regards the application of the Convention at any time by a Contracting State any term not defined therein shall, unless the context otherwise requires, have the meaning that it has at that time under the law of that State for the purposes of the taxes to which the Convention applies, any meaning under the applicable tax laws of that State prevailing over a meaning given to the term under other laws of that State.