Action brought on 6 October 2010 - European Commission v Kingdom of Spain

(Case C-483/10)

Language of the case: Spanish

Parties

Applicant: European Commission (represented by: H. Støvlbæk and R. Vidal Puig, Agents)

Defendant: Kingdom of Spain

Form of order sought

Declare that the Kingdom of Spain has failed to fulfil its obligations under Articles 4(1), 11(2), 14(1) and 30(1) of Directive 2001/14/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 February 2001 on the allocation of railway infrastructure capacity and the levying of charges for the use of railway infrastructure and safety certification, ¹ and under Article 10(7) of Council Directive 91/440/EEC of 29 July 1991 on the development of the Community's railways. ²

Order the Kingdom of Spain to pay the costs.

Pleas in law and main arguments

The Commission submits that the Kingdom of Spain has failed to comply with the following provisions of the above-mentioned directives:

Article 4(1) of Directive 2001/14/EC, in so far as the level of railway infrastructure charges is 'determined' exclusively by the State authorities, the function of the "infrastructure manager", Administrador de Infraestructuras Ferroviarias (ADIF), being reduced to merely collecting the charges;

Article 11 of Directive 2001/14/EC, since the charging scheme introduced by the Spanish authorities does not set out any performance scheme in accordance with the criteria laid down in that article;

Article 30(1) of Directive 2001/14/EC, since the Spanish legislation does not ensure that the regulatory body (el Comité de Regulación Ferroviaria) is sufficiently independent vis-à-vis ADIF (the railway infrastructure manager) and RENFE-Operadora (a railway undertaking attached to the Spanish Ministry of Public Works);

Article 10(7) of Directive 91/440/EEC, because the regulatory body (el Comité de Regulación Ferroviaria) lacks the means necessary to perform the function conferred on it under that article of monitoring the competition in the rail services markets;

Article 13(2) and Article 14(1) of Directive 2001/14/EC in so far as the Spanish legislation lays down criteria for the allocation of railway infrastructure capacity which are discriminatory; these may in fact result in the allocation of train paths for a longer term than one working timetable period; the criteria are also lacking in detail.

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¹ - OJ 2001 L 75, p. 29.

² - OJ 1991 L 237, p. 25.