Keywords

Summary



Keywords

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1. Competition ° Community rules ° Obligations of the Member States ° Free movement of goods ° Fixing of road-haulage tariffs by the public authorities ° Compatibility ° Criteria

(EC Treaty, Arts 3(g), 5, 30, 85, 86 and 90)

2. Preliminary rulings ° Jurisdiction of the Court ° Limits ° Irrelevant question not strictly needed in order to decide the case

(EC Treaty, Art. 177)

3. Transport ° Road transport ° Combined transport by sea and road ° Directive 92/160 ° Scope ° Combined transport of goods between third countries and Member States ° Excluded ° Maritime transport services ° Freedom to provide services ° Regulation No 4055/86 ° Scope ° Transportation by road of goods unloaded from a vessel ° Excluded

(Council Regulation No 4055/86, Art. 1(1) and (4); Council Directive 92/106, Art. 1, second para.)

Summary

1. Articles 3(g), 5, 30, 85, 86 and 90 do not preclude the legislation of a Member State from providing for road-haulage tariffs to be approved and brought into force by the State on the basis of proposals submitted by a committee, where that committee is composed of a majority of representatives of the public authorities and a minority of representatives of the economic agents concerned and in its proposals must observe certain public interest criteria, and where, moreover, the public authorities do not relinquish their rights and powers by taking into consideration, before the proposals are approved, the observations of other public and private bodies, or even by fixing tariffs ex officio.

Such legislation:

° does not require or favour the adoption of agreements contrary to Article 85, nor reinforce the effects of such agreements, nor delegate to private economic operators responsibility for taking decisions affecting the economic sphere;

° does not place economic agents in a collective dominant position characterized by the absence of competition between them;

° merely determines the conditions governing access to the market and certain aspects of the conduct of undertakings, particularly as regards prices, without turning them into public undertakings, granting them special or exclusive rights or entrusting them with the operation of services of general economic interest;

° makes no distinction according to the origin of the goods transported, is not intended to regulate trade in goods with other Member States and is capable only of producing restrictive effects on the free movement of goods which are too uncertain and indirect for the obligation which it lays down to be regarded as being such as to hinder trade between Member States.

2. In the context of the procedure provided for in Article 177 of the Treaty, the Court has no jurisdiction to rule on questions submitted by a national court if they bear no relation to the facts or the subject-matter of the main action and are therefore not strictly needed in order to decide the case.

3. Directive 92/106 on the establishment of common rules for certain types of combined transport of goods between Member States does not apply to combined transport of goods between third countries and Member States, and Regulation No 4055/86 applying the principle of freedom to provide services to maritime transport between Member States and between Member States and third countries does not apply to the transportation by road of goods unloaded from a vessel.