Action brought on 10 April 2024 – European Commission v Kingdom of Spain
(Case C-250/24)
Language of the case: Spanish
Parties
Applicant: European Commission (represented by: J.L. Buendía Sierra and P. Messina, acting as Agents)
Defendant: Kingdom of Spain
Form of order sought
A declaration that, by failing to introduce a reform to ensure the management autonomy of ADIF [railway infrastructure manager], ADIF-Alta Velocidad and Renfe vis-à-vis the State, and by failing to put in place an operational charging system in accordance with the rules and principles of Directive 2012/34, 1 and, finally, by failing to transpose the necessary amendment to the agreement with ADIF-Alta Velocidad, the Kingdom of Spain has failed to fulfil its obligations under Article 4(2), Article 5(3)(b), Article 29(1), Article 30(1) and (3), Article 31(2), (3), (7) and (8), Article 33 in conjunction with Annexes I and II, and Article 36 of that Directive;
an order that the Kingdom of Spain pay the costs of the proceedings.
Pleas in law and main arguments
The Kingdom of Spain was required to transpose and apply Directive 2012/34 establishing a single European railway area before 16 June 2015.
The Commission considers, however, that that directive has not been properly transposed with respect to the following matters:
1. There is an infringement of Article 4(2) and Article 5(3)(b) of that directive, in that the national legislation has not been ensured
(i) management autonomy of the infrastructure manager (ADIF and ADIF-Alta Velocidad) vis-à-vis the State; and
(ii) the freedom to set prices for rail services, which must be determined by the rail operator (namely, Renfe) according to exclusively commercial principles.
Given that decisions are taken by administrative bodies consisting mainly of officials and employees of State ministries, the State may be regarded as exercising a decisive influence over those decisions, in breach of the provisions of the directive.
2. Nor has an applicable and operational charging system been put in place that would effectively comply with the principles and rules laid down in Article 4(2), Article 29(1), Article 31(2), (3), (7) and (8), Article 33 in conjunction with Annexes I and II, and Article 36.
While it is the case that Spain has adopted legislative measures to reform the charging system, those measures have suspended the application of the new scheme until ADIF has taken a decision on its implementation. However, ADIF has not devised the new system, nor has it provided a timetable for doing so, and the legislation does not set a time limit for it to do so. ADIF has not complied with the requirement in the directive concerning this issue.
3. While paragraphs (1) and (3) of Article 30 of Directive 2012/34 require a reduction in the costs of providing infrastructure ‘and’ – cumulatively – in the level of access charges, the Spanish legislation initially transposed this as an alternative, including the conjunction ‘or’, thereby altering the meaning of paragraphs 1 and 3 of the Article 30 of Directive 2012/34.
Although Spain did eventually amend that provision, it has not yet transposed it to the agreement with ADIF-Alta Velocidad, which specifically governs the economic contributions and financing needs of that entity. In those circumstances, the provisions set out have not been implemented effectively.
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1 Directive 2012/34/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 November 2012 establishing a single European railway area (recast) – OJ 2012 L 343, p. 32.