Judgment;Summary — ECLI:EU:C:2020:275
Date: 2020-04-02
Language of the case: German
Court formation: Ninth Chamber
Subject matter: Free movement of workers
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Germany

Anonymised version 
Translation   C-830/18 — 1 
Case C-830/18 
Request for a preliminary ruling 
Date lodged: 
28 December 2018 
Referring court: 
Oberverwaltungsgericht Rheinland-Pfalz (Germany) 
Date of the decision to refer: 
11 December 2018 
Applicants and Respondents: 
PF and Others 
Defendant and Appellant: 
Landkreis Südliche Weinstraße 
  
OBERVERWALTUNGSGERICHT RHEINLAND-PFALZ (HIGHER 
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT OF RHINELAND-PALATINATE) 
ORDER 
In the administrative proceedings between 
PF and Others, […], F-6716[0] Wissembourg, 
– Applicants and Respondents – 
[…] 
v 
Landkreis Südliche Weinstraße (district of Südliche Weinstraße), […] 76829 
Landau, 
EN 
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– Defendant and Appellant —  
intervener: 
Representative of the public interest 
– Ministry of Justice —, 
[…] 55116 Mainz, 
concerning school transport 
in this case: Referral according to Article 267 TFEU [Or. 2] 
the Second Chamber of the Higher Administrative Court of Rhineland-Palatinate 
in Koblenz has, on the basis of the hearing held on 11 December 2018 […] […], 
made the following order: 
The proceedings are stayed. Pursuant to Article 267 of the Treaty on the 
Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), a preliminary ruling by the 
Court of Justice of the European Union is to be obtained on the following 
questions: 
1. Is Article 7(2) of Regulation (EU) No 492/2011 of the European 
Parliament and of the Council of 5 April 2011 on freedom of 
movement for workers within the Union (OJ 2011 L 141 p. 1) to 
be interpreted as meaning that a provision of national law 
limiting the obligation of national local authorities (districts) 
regarding school transport to the residents of the wider 
constituent state (Land) has an indirectly discriminatory effect, 
even if it is established, on the basis of the factual circumstances, 
that the residence requirement quite predominantly excludes 
residents of the rest of the territory of the Member State from the 
benefit? 
If Question 1 is to be answered in the affirmative: 
2. Does the effective organisation of the school system constitute an 
imperative requirement of public interest which is capable of 
justifying indirect discrimination? 
Reasons 
I. 
1 The parties are in dispute regarding the obligation of the defendant local authority 
to reimburse the applicants for the school transport costs for the 2015/2016 school 
year. Applicant 1 was born on 22 January 2000 and, in the school year in question, 
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attended the 10th form of Bad Bergzabern Realschule plus (non-selective 
secondary school). The school is in Germany, in the Land of Rhineland-Palatinate 
and, in that Land, in the defendant district of Südliche Weinstraße. Applicant 2 
was born on 13 October 2003 and, in the [Or. 3] school year in question, attended 
the 7th form of the same school. The applicants are — like their parents — 
German nationals, with the family living in Wissembourg, France. Throughout the 
2015/2016 school year, the applicants’ mother was employed as a hairdresser in 
Germany. 
2 After the school transport costs had initially been borne by the defendant district, 
the district informed the applicants by notices of 16 June 2015 that the previous 
voluntary services could not be continued from the 2015/2016 school year. As 
reasoning, it stated that the Rhineland-Palatinate Land Law on education only 
assigned school transport to the districts for those students who resided in 
Rhineland-Palatinate. The oppositions raised against this were rejected. The 
Administrative Court upheld the action. A right to reimbursement of the transport 
costs did not follow from national law, as this required the students to reside in 
Rhineland-Palatinate. However, the Land Law on education was to be applied by 
analogy to the applicants on the basis of Article 7(2) of Regulation No 492/2011. 
The defendant’s appeal, leave for which was granted by the Administrative Court 
due to the fundamental importance of the case, is directed against this. 
II. 
3 The proceedings are to be stayed. Pursuant to Article 267 of the Treaty on the 
Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), a preliminary ruling by the Court of 
Justice is to be obtained on the questions set out in the operative part. These 
questions concern the applicability and interpretation of Article 7(2) of Regulation 
(EU) No 492/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 5 April 2011 
on freedom of movement for workers within the Union (OJ 2011 L 141, p. 1). As 
this involves the interpretation of EU law, the Court of Justice has jurisdiction. 
4 (A) For the legal assessment of the action pursued in the appeal proceedings, 
the provisions on school law and [Or. 4] local public transport are in particular 
important according to national law. Both areas of law fall within the legislative 
jurisdiction of the Länder. The provisions that are decisive for the dispute read as 
follows: 
5  
Rhineland-Palatinate Law on education of 30 March 2004 […]. Last amended by 
Article 10 of the Law of 16 February 2016 […] 
– Law on education – 
6  
Paragraph 7 
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Duration of school attendance 
As provided by this law in more detail, school is generally to be attended for the 
duration of twelve school years. 
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Paragraph 56 
Basic principle 
(1) All children, young people and adolescents whose place of residence or 
usual abode is in Rhineland-Palatinate are obliged to attend a school; provisions 
under international law and agreements between States shall remain unaffected. 
… 
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[…] 
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Paragraph 69 
Transport of students 
(1) Districts and boroughs are obliged, as a compulsory autonomous task, to 
take care of the transport of students to the primary schools and special-needs 
schools in their territory, if the students reside in Rhineland-Palatinate and cannot 
reasonably travel to school without using a means of transport. 
The same applies to transport 
1. to the nearest Realschule plus […], [Or. 5] 
[…]. 
If a school outside Rhineland-Palatinate is attended, the district or borough in 
whose territory the student resides shall bear the transport costs. 
(2) The journey to school shall be deemed unreasonable without using a means 
of transport if it is particularly dangerous or if the shortest not particularly 
dangerous walk between home and the primary school is longer than two 
kilometres, and that between home and the Realschule plus […] is longer than 
four kilometres. … 
(3) In the case of attendance at a school other than the nearest according to the 
second sentence of subparagraph 1, costs shall only be borne to the extent that 
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they would have been borne in the case of travel to the nearest school. Only 
schools with the chosen first foreign language are to be taken into account when 
determining the nearest school. … 
(4) The task is primarily fulfilled by bearing the necessary travel costs for public 
means of transport. Where reasonable public transport links do not exist, school 
buses should be operated. Costs of other means of transport only have to be borne 
up to the amount that would be incurred under sentence 1. 
(5) … 
(6) The timetable and route in the scope of the transport of students shall be set 
by the district in consultation with the municipalities […] from whose territory 
students are to be transported. … 
… 
10  
Land Law on local public transport of 17 November 1995 […], last amended by 
Paragraph 12 of the Law of 22 December 2015 […] — Law on local transport – 
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Paragraph 3 
General guidelines 
… 
(4) Special commuter and student transport should as far as possible be included 
in the provision of local public transport. 
… [Or. 6] 
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Paragraph 5 
Local public transport by road and by boat 
(1) Districts and boroughs shall be responsible for the local public transport 
under Paragraph 1(2), point 1. They shall perform the task as a free autonomous 
task within the scope of their financial capability. 
… 
13 (B) The questions referred are relevant to the decision and require clarification 
by the Court of Justice. The outcome of the appeal proceedings depends on 
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whether a residence requirement, as provided for in the first sentence of 
Paragraph 69(1) of the Law on education, is in breach of Article 7(2) of 
Regulation No 492/2011. If this were to be the case, the advantage granted would 
have to be extended, namely to the members of the disadvantaged group, pending 
a new legal regulation (Court of Justice, judgment of 4 December 1986 — Case 
71/85, Federatie Nederlandse Vakbeweging —, [EU:C:1986:465]; judgment of 
21 June 2007 — Case C-231/06 [to C-233/06], Jonkman —, [EU:C:2007:373] 
[…]). Whether a breach of EU law exists in cases such as the present is not made 
sufficiently clear in the case-law, nor is it so obvious that there is no room for 
reasonable doubt. 
14 (1) Under Article 7(2) of Regulation No 492/2011, a worker who is a national 
of a Member State is to enjoy, in the territory of another Member State, the same 
social advantages as national workers. The Chamber assumes that this provision is 
applicable to cases such as this. 
15 (a) Firstly, the Chamber infers from the case-law of the Court of Justice that 
Article 7(2) of Regulation No 492/2011 also claims validity in the immediate area 
of application of Article 10 of Regulation No 492/2011. Pursuant to Article 10 of 
Regulation No 492/2011 and the identically worded predecessor provision of 
Article 12 of Regulation (EEC) No 1612/68 of the Council of 15 October 1968 
(OJ, English Special Edition 1968(II), p. 475), the children of a national of a 
Member State who is or has been employed in the territory of another Member 
State shall be admitted to that State’s general education courses under the same 
conditions as the nationals of that State, if such children are residing in its 
territory. [Or. 7] 
16 It is argued in the jurisprudential literature, on the basis of the wording and 
schematic position of the rule — only Article 10 of Regulation No 492/2011 
appears in Section 3 of the regulation, which bears the title ‘Workers’ families’ — 
that the rule governs the rights of workers’ children to equal participation in 
education as a special provision and therefore enjoys priority of application. The 
particular conditions of Article 10 of Regulation No 492/2011, in particular the 
residence requirement, would be circumvented if a right to equal treatment within 
the scope of the rule were also derived from Article 7(2) of Regulation 
No 492/2011. 
17 On the other hand, the Court of Justice has emphasised that the two rules have 
different personal scope. Whereas family members were indirect recipients of the 
right to equal treatment granted to the worker under Article 7(2) of Regulation 
No 492/2011, children of a migrant worker received on the basis of Article 10 of 
Regulation No 492/2011 an autonomous right of access to education, which was 
neither dependent on possessing the status of dependent child nor was limited to 
the children of migrant workers, but also applied to the children of former migrant 
workers (Court of Justice, judgment of 14 June 2012 — Case C-542/09, European 
Commission v Kingdom of the Netherlands —, [EU:C:2012:346] paragraph 48 et 
seq. regarding the predecessor provisions of Article 7(2) and Article 12 of 
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Regulation No 1612/68). In addition, the Court of Justice has on several 
occasions — in each case without expressly going into the provision of Article 12 
of Regulation No 1612/68 — applied Article 7(2) of Regulation No 1612/68 in 
connection with rights to equal participation in a course of study, even though the 
children did not reside in the Member State concerned (Court of Justice, judgment 
of 26 February 1992 — Case C-3/90, Bernini —, [EU:C:1992:89] paragraph 29; 
also see the Opinion of Advocate General Gerven, [EU:C:1991:308] point 22; 
judgment of 8 June 1999 — Case C-337/97, Meeusen —, [EU:C:1999:284] 
paragraph 18 et seq.; judgment of 20 June 2013 — Case C-20/12, Giersch and 
Others —, ECLI:EU:C:2013:411, paragraph 41). [Or. 8] 
18 (b) It is without question that what are known as frontier workers, that is to say 
workers who work in a different Member State to where they live, can also rely on 
Article 7(2) of Regulation No 492/2011. The fourth recital of that regulation 
expressly states that the right of free movement must be enjoyed without 
discrimination by permanent, seasonal and frontier workers and by those who 
pursue their activities for the purpose of providing services, and Article 7 of the 
regulation refers, without reservation, to a worker who is a national of a Member 
State (Court of Justice, judgment of 27 November 1997 — Case C-57/96, 
Meints —, [EU:C:1997:564] paragraph 39, and judgment of 18 July 2007 — Case 
C-213/05, Geven —, [EU:C:2007:438] paragraph 15; in each case regarding 
Article 7(2) of Regulation No 1612/68). 
19 (c) Article 7(2) of Regulation No 492/2011 covers not just those advantages 
enjoyed directly by the worker, but also benefits for the members of the worker’s 
family, as long as they are dependent on him (Court of Justice, judgment of 
12 July 1984 — Case 261/83, Castelli —, [EU:C:1984:280] paragraphs 10 and 11; 
judgment of 20 June 1985 — Case 94/84, Deak —, [EU:C:1985:264] 
paragraphs 22 and 23; judgment of 18 June 1987 — Case 316/85, Lebon —, 
[EU:C:1987:302] paragraphs 11 and 12; judgment of 26 February 1992 — Case 
C-3/90, Bernini —, [EU:C:1992:89] paragraph 23; in each case regarding 
Article 7(2) of Regulation No 1612/68). In such a case, the right to equal 
treatment may be asserted not only by the worker, but also by his family member, 
as long as the social advantage — as in the present case — is granted to the family 
member under national law (Court of Justice, judgment of 26 February 1992 — 
Case C-3/90, Bernini —, [EU:C:1992:89] paragraph 26). 
20 (d) Finally, workers and their children may also rely on the freedom of 
movement for workers under EU law against their own home State if they have 
taken up residence in another Member State, as the necessary inter-State 
relationship exists in this case (see only Court of Justice, judgment of 21 February 
2006 — Case C-152/03, Ritter-Coulais —, [EU:C:2006:123] paragraph 31 with 
further references). 
21 (e) The referring court also assumes that a bearing of school transport costs 
that is regulated in national law constitutes a social advantage within the meaning 
of Article 7(2) of Regulation No 492/2011. Social advantages are all advantages 
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which, whether or not linked to a contract of employment [Or. 9], are granted to 
national workers because of their objective status as workers or by virtue of the 
mere fact of their residence on the national territory, and whose extension to 
workers who are nationals of other Member States therefore seems likely to 
facilitate the mobility of such workers within the Community (Court of Justice, 
judgment of 27 March 1985 — Case 249/83, Hoeckx —, [EU:C:1985:139] 
paragraph 20; judgment of 12 May 1998 — Case C-85/96 —, [Martínez Sala, 
EU:C:1998:217] paragraph 25, and of 27 November 1997 — Case C-57/96, 
Meints —, [EU:C:1997:564] paragraph 39). According to the case-law of the 
Court of Justice, a grant awarded for maintenance and training with a view to the 
pursuit of secondary or further education is to be regarded as a social advantage 
within the meaning of the regulation (Court of Justice, judgment of 21 June 
1988 — Case 39/86, Lair —, [EU:C:1988:322] paragraph 24; judgment of 
15 March 1989 — Cases 389 and 390/87 —, [Echternach and Others, 
EU:C:1989:130] paragraph 34; judgment of 26 February 1992 — Case C-3/90, 
Bernini —, [EU:C:1992:89] paragraph 23). In cases like the present, parents with 
maintenance responsibility would in principle have to bear in full their children’s 
transport costs themselves as part of the maintenance costs. Where the national 
law transfers this obligation to the State under certain conditions, the parents are 
relieved of some of these costs […]. As a result, despite certain differences 
compared to study assistance, the bearing of school transport costs should 
therefore constitute a social advantage within the meaning of Article 7(2) of 
Regulation No 492/2011. 
22 (2) The first question referred arises in connection with the question to be 
examined by the Chamber of whether the residence requirement based in national 
law on the territory of a constituent state leads, under the factual circumstances 
established in the present case, to indirect discrimination against workers from 
other Member States. 
23 According to established case-law of the Court of Justice, the principle of equal 
treatment of workers of the Member States laid down both in Article 45 TFEU 
and in Article 7 of Regulation No 492/2011 prohibits not only overt 
discrimination by reason of nationality but also all covert forms of discrimination 
which, by the application of other [Or. 10] distinguishing criteria, lead in fact to 
the same result (see only Court of Justice, judgment of 20 June 2013 — C-20/12, 
Giersch and Others —, [EU:C:2013:411] paragraph 41 with further references). 
24 According to the earlier case-law of the Court of Justice, indirect discrimination 
was found to exist where a provision was not linked to nationality, but actually 
nevertheless essentially or quite predominantly affected nationals of other 
Member States (as in Court of Justice, judgment of 15 January 1986 — Case 
41/84, Pinna —, [EU:C:1986:1] paragraph 24; judgment of 30 May 1989 — Case 
33/88, Allué —, [EU:C:1989:22] paragraph 12; judgment of 21 November 
1991 — Case C-27/91, Le Manoir —, [EU:C:1991:441] paragraph 11). The Court 
of Justice later emphasised that a provision of national law was indirectly 
discriminatory if it was intrinsically liable to affect foreign workers more than 
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national workers and there was a consequent risk that it would place migrant 
workers at a particular disadvantage. However, it was not necessary in this respect 
to find that the provision in question did in practice affect a substantially higher 
proportion of foreign workers. It was sufficient that it was liable to have such an 
effect (Court of Justice, judgment of 23 May 1996 — C-237/94, O’Flynn —, 
[EU:C:1996:206] paragraphs 20 and 21; judgment of 12 September 1996 — Case 
C-278/94, Commission v Belgium —, [EU:C:1996:321] paragraph 20; judgment 
of 28 June 2012 — Case C-172/11, Erny —, ECLI:EU:C:2012:399, 
paragraph 41). The Court of Justice has equally emphasised that, in order to be 
regarded as discriminatory, it was not necessary for a provision to have the effect 
of placing at an advantage all the nationals of the State in question or of placing at 
a disadvantage only nationals of other Member States, but not nationals of the 
State in question (judgment of 28 June 2012 — Case C-172/11, Erny —, 
ECLI:EU:C:2012:399, paragraph 41; judgment of 20 June 2013 — Case C-20/12, 
Giersch —, ECLI:EU:C:2013:411, paragraph 45). 
25 Specifically in relation to residence requirements provided for in national law, the 
Court of Justice has already ruled on several occasions that these may be less 
easily met by nationals of other Member States than by national workers and 
therefore have an indirectly discriminatory effect (Court of Justice, judgment of 
27 November 1997, — C-57/96, Meints —, [EU:C:1997:564] paragraph 45; 
judgment of 29 April 1999 — C-224/97, Ciola —, [EU:C:1999:212] 
paragraph 14; judgment of 18 July 2007 — C-213/05, Geven —, 
[EU:C:2007:438] paragraph 19; judgment of 20 June 2013 — C-20/12, Giersch 
and Others —, ECLI:EU:C:2013:411, paragraph 45). [Or. 11] However, these 
cases each involved residence requirements which covered the entire territory of 
the Member State, which means that the supposition that these might be less easily 
met by foreign workers than by national workers was obvious. However, the 
present case concerns a residence requirement which only covers a small part of 
the national territory and is therefore, even in principle, at least equally likely to 
exclude workers residing in the Member State itself from a benefit. 
26 However, the Court of Justice has also found a provision according to which local 
museums and monuments were to provide reduced entry prices for certain persons 
who resided in the territory of the facilities to have an indirectly discriminatory 
effect. In this case, it was immaterial whether the contested measure affected, in 
some circumstances, nationals of the State in question resident in other parts of the 
national territory as well as nationals of other Member States (Court of Justice, 
judgment of 16 January 2003 — C-388/01, Commission v Italy —, 
[EU:C:2003:30] paragraph 14). However, this case involved facilities of tourist 
interest which are naturally visited to a particular extent by foreign visitors. It 
therefore remains open whether the Court of Justice at least assumed a 
considerable involvement of nationals of other Member States or considers the 
mere possibility of such an involvement to be sufficient […]. 
27 In the present case, it is established on the basis of the factual circumstances that 
the residence requirement in question currently almost exclusively excludes from 
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benefits students residing in the Member State itself and only to a very small 
degree excludes students residing in neighbouring Member States. This is 
primarily due to the fact that ¾ of the constituent state’s border are within the 
Member State, namely with the neighbouring Länder of Saarland, Baden-
Württemberg, Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia. Only ¼ of its border is with the 
neighbouring Member States of France, Belgium and Luxembourg. [Or. 12]. 
28 On the other hand, the rule involves the territorial delimitation of responsibilities 
in the field of the school system, which is in any case strongly territorial in nature 
due to the need for daily school attendance, and also the language barrier. This is 
proven by the figures submitted by the representative of the public interest at the 
request of the court. In the last completed school year 2017/2018, a total of 3 838 
students who attended a [school, including a Realschule plus] in Rhineland-
Palatinate resided outside that Land. Of those, 3 763 students, that is to say around 
95.6%, came from neighbouring German Länder and 175, that is to say around 
4.4%, came from the neighbouring Member States of Belgium, France and 
Luxembourg. 
29 To the referring Chamber, it appears questionable to assume that a residence 
requirement has an indirectly discriminatory effect when, on the basis of the 
factual circumstances, it is established that over 95% of the people excluded from 
a benefit reside in the Member State itself. 
30 (3) If the first question referred is to be answered in the affirmative, that is to 
say provisions such as that in question here also have an indirectly discriminatory 
effect, this raises the further question of whether there is a justifying ground. 
Written justifying grounds under Article 45(3) TFEU (public policy, public 
security and public health) do not come into consideration in the present case. 
However, indirect discrimination may also be justified by imperative requirements 
of public interest (cf. Court of Justice, judgment of 17 June 1981 — Case 
113/80 —, [Commission v Ireland, EU:C:1981:139] paragraph 11; judgment of 
20 March 1990 — Case C-21/88 —, [Du Pont de Nemours Italiana, 
EU:C:1990:121] paragraph 14; judgment of 15 December 1995 — C-415/93, 
Bosman —, [EU:C:1995:463] paragraph 104). 
31 The Chamber is of the opinion that, in the present case, the effective organisation 
of the school system could prove to be an imperative requirement of public 
interest which justifies differentiating between claimants according to their place 
of residence. The organisation of the school system has always been based on 
territory, at least in the field of compulsory education. In order to safeguard and 
implement the right to education set down in Article 26 of the Universal 
Declaration of Human Rights, Article 14 of the Charter of the [Or. 13] European 
Union, Article 7 of the Basic Law and Article 27 of the Land Constitution, school 
attendance is compulsory. Paragraph 56 of the Rhineland-Palatinate Land Law on 
education accordingly provides that all children, young people and adolescents 
whose place of residence or usual abode is in Rhineland-Palatinate are obliged to 
attend a school. On the other hand, for persons who have taken up residence 
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outside Rhineland-Palatinate, the Law provides no right to admission to 
Rhineland-Palatinate schools […]. As expressly referred to by the representative 
of the public interest, the entire school development planning of the Land is 
accordingly focussed on students residing in the Land. EU law itself also 
obviously recognises the territorial nature of school organisation. Article 10 of 
Regulation No 492/2011 thus links school attendance rights to residence in the 
Member State (cf. Court of Justice, judgment of 6 September 2012 — Cases 
C-147/11 [and C-148/11], Czop and Punakova —, ECLI:EU:C:2012:538, 
paragraph 26; also see Court of Justice, judgment of 13 June 2013 — Case 
C-45/12 —, [Hadj Ahmed] ECLI:EU:C:2013:390, paragraph 52). 
32 The rules on school transport ultimately only constitute part of the rules on the 
organisation and provision of school education. However, they again make the 
territorial connection particularly clear. On the one hand, the school transport 
question is closely linked with the provision of the school infrastructure. The 
length and difficulty of the journeys to school are decisively influenced by the 
number and distribution of the schools provided by the competent local authority 
on its territory. This is confirmed by the historical development of school 
transport costs, the assumption of which was originally introduced as 
compensation for the fact that a reorganisation of the education structure in 1964 
largely led to longer journeys to school […]. On the other hand, school transport is 
closely connected with the local public transport system. According to national 
law, the right to transport is primarily [Or. 14] to be guaranteed by the creation 
and provision of local public transport (Paragraph 3(4) of the Law on local 
transport). The travel costs incurred for local public transport are borne as a matter 
of priority (first sentence of Paragraph 69(4) of the Law on education). Where 
reasonable public transport links do not exist, school buses should be operated. 
Costs of other means of transport only have to be borne up to the amount that 
would be incurred when using public means of transport (third sentence of 
Paragraph 69(4) of the Law on education). Responsibility for local public 
transport in this case lies with the administrative districts, which are also 
responsible for school transport ([Paragraph] 5(1) of the Law on local transport). 
33 If the territorial connection in the field of school organisation were to be 
abandoned, this would raise issues that are difficult to resolve. It is in no way clear 
how the order of the judgment at first instance that the national regulations were to 
be applied ‘by analogy’ to persons residing in another Member State should be 
implemented in practice. One possibility, which is obviously the defendant’s 
perception, is that the Rhineland-Palatinate Law on education, for the purpose of 
examining the claims, would have to be conceptually widened overall to the 
territory of other Member States, which means that the ‘nearest’ school could 
possibly also be in France in the present case. However, this would mean 
comparing and correlating schools of completely different education systems. In 
Rhineland-Palatinate, for example, the former general secondary schools and 
intermediate secondary schools were combined to form what is known as the 
‘Realschule plus’. It would remain unclear what school in France was supposed to 
correspond to this type. In addition, in secondary schools for example, the choice 
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of first foreign language also affects the question of which school is to be regarded 
as the ‘nearest’ (cf. second sentence of Paragraph 69(3) of the Law on education). 
If the schools are correlated with one another, this could result in a defendant 
district having to bear the travel costs to the extent that they would be incurred in 
the case of attendance at the nearest school in France (cf. the first sentence of 
Paragraph 69(3) of the Law on education). In this case, the district would have 
absolutely no influence on the decisive parameters of these costs — the 
availability of schools within a certain territory and the density of the network of 
local public transport. [Or. 15] 
34 Otherwise, it would be necessary conceptually to disregard schools outside 
Rhineland-Palatinate. The ‘nearest’ school would then always be within the 
borders of the Land. However, in this case, the length of the journey to school 
would depend solely on where a student has taken up residence and could exceed 
any distance conceivable within the Land many times over. In this respect too, 
neither the school infrastructure provided in the Land nor a development of local 
public transport would have a decisive influence on the costs to be borne. In any 
case, the directory provision for the operation of school buses where there are no 
reasonable public means of transport (cf. second sentence of Paragraph 69(4) of 
the Law on education) appears to only be transferable to the territory of another 
Member State with difficulty. 
35 If the effective organisation of the school system is capable of justifying indirect 
discrimination, it could prove to be a proportionate restriction of the right to equal 
treatment from Article 7(2) of Regulation No 492/2011 to reimburse students 
residing in another Member State at least for those costs incurred on the territory 
of the Land. In this regard, the place of residence for the calculation could be 
notionally moved to where the linear distance between the actual residence and 
the nearest school crosses the Land border. In this way, the Law on education 
could be applied to students residing in other Member States without 
contradiction. 
[…]