Action brought on 12 July 2011 - European Commission v Italian Republic

(Case C-369/11)

Language of the case: Italian

Parties

Applicant: European Commission (represented by: E. Montaguti and H. Støvlbæk, acting as Agents)

Defendant: Italian Republic

Form of order sought

Declare that, by failing to adopt the laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to comply with Article 6(3) and Annex II of Directive 91/440/EEC¹, as amended, and with Articles 4(2), 14(2), 4(1), 30(3) and 30(1) of Directive 2001/14/EC², the Italian Republic has failed to fulfil its obligations under those provisions.

order the Italian Republic to pay the costs.

Pleas in law and main arguments

The Commission's complaints concern the independence of the body carrying out essential functions in the matter of access to infrastructure and the imposition of dues for railway access and the powers and autonomy of the body regulating the railway sector.

The Commission argues that the regime governing the exercise by the infrastructure manager of essential functions concerning access to the infrastructure does not provide sufficient guarantees that that manager operates independently of the holding company of the group of which it forms part, which also includes the main railway undertaking on the market.

Moreover, given that it is for the Minister for Transport to determine dues for access to the network, whereas the infrastructure manager can only make a proposal on the matter and has only the operating duty of calculating the dues actually payable by a single railway undertaking, the latter is deprived of an essential management tool, in contrast with the requirement for independent management.

Finally, the necessary full independence of the body for regulating all railway undertakings has not yet been assured, since the staff of the regulatory body consists of officials of the Ministry of Transport and the latter continues to exercise a decisive influence on the holding company of the group which includes the main Italian railway undertaking, and thus also on the latter.

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¹ - OJ 1991 L 237, p. 25.

² - OJ 2001 L 75, p. 29.