Action brought on 21 May 2008 - Commission of the European Communities v Kingdom of Belgium

(Case C-222/08)

Language of the case: Dutch

Parties

Applicant: Commission of the European Communities (represented by: H. van Vliet and A. Nijenhuis, acting as Agents)

Defendant: Kingdom of Belgium

Form of order sought

Declare that, by virtue of the transposition into national law of the provisions on the costing and financing of universal service obligations, the Kingdom of Belgium has failed to fulfil its obligations under Articles 12(1), 13(1), and Annex IV, part A, of Directive 2002/22/EC;

order Kingdom of Belgium to pay the costs.

Pleas in law and main arguments

The objective of Directive 2002/22 is, inter alia, to define the situations in which the market does not satisfactorily meet the needs of end-users and the directive contains provisions regarding the availability of the universal service. Article 12(1) of the directive provides that where national regulatory authorities consider that the provision of universal service may represent an unfair burden on undertakings designated to provide universal service, they are to calculate the net costs of its provision in the manner set out in that article. Annex IV, part A, contains provisions concerning the calculation of the net costs. Article 13(1) provides that where, on the basis of the net cost calculation referred to in Article 12, national regulatory authorities find that an undertaking is subject to an unfair burden, the Member States are, upon request from a designated undertaking, to decide to introduce a compensation mechanism.

According to the Commission, Belgium has not correctly transposed the provisions of Article 12(1), Article 13(1) and Annex IV, part A, of the directive. The Belgian legislation provides for no assessment of the question whether the provision of social tariffs in the course of performing the universal service represents an unfair burden for the undertakings concerned. Furthermore the Belgian legislation does not satisfy the requirement concerning the costing of net costs set out more particularly in the last section of Annex IV, part A, to the directive.

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