Commission of the European Communities v French Republic.
Date: 1994-10-05
10 As the Court held in its judgment in Case C-379/92 Peralta [1994] ECR I-0000 at paragraph 39, that provision defines the beneficiaries of the freedom to provide maritime transport services between Member States and between Member States and third countries in terms which are substantially the same as those used in Article 59 of the Treaty.
11 By providing, further, that "Without prejudice to the provisions of the Treaty relating to right of establishment, a person providing a maritime transport service may, in order to do so, temporarily pursue his activity in the Member State where the service is provided, under the same conditions as are imposed by that State on its own nationals", Article 8 of Regulation No 4055/86 transposes the principle laid down in the third paragraph of Article 60 of the Treaty to the sphere of maritime transport between Member States.
12 Finally, under Article 1(3) of Regulation No 4055/86, the provisions of Articles 55 to 58 and 62 of the Treaty are to apply to those types of maritime transport.
13 Paragraph 13 of Regulation No 4055/86 thus renders applicable to the sphere of maritime transport between Member States the totality of the Treaty rules governing the freedom to provide services.
14 In pursuance of those rules the freedom to provide services may be relied on not only by nationals of Member States established in a Member State other than that of the recipient of the services but also by an undertaking against the State in which it is established where the services are provided to recipients established in another Member State (see judgment in Case C-18/93 Corsica Ferries Italia [1994] ECR I-0000, paragraph 30, and more generally whenever a provider of services offers services in a Member State other than the one in which he is established (see judgment in Case C-154/89 Commission v France [1991] ECR I-659, paragraphs 9 and 10, and the abovementioned Peralta judgment, at paragraph 41).
16 Once the provision of services at issue in the present action is established as falling within Article 59 of the Treaty, under the Court' s consistent case-law Article 59 precludes the application of any national legislation which without objective justification impedes a provider of services from actually exercising that freedom (see judgment in Case C-288/89 Collectieve Antennevoorziening Gouda [1991] ECR I-4007).
17 In the perspective of a single market and in order to permit the realization of its objectives, that freedom likewise precludes the application of any national legislation which has the effect of making the provision of services between Member States more difficult than the provision of services purely within one Member State.
18 Consequently, the provision of maritime transport services between Member States cannot be subject to stricter conditions than those to which analogous provisions of services at domestic level are subject.
20 To accept that the Member States might on that ground be justified in charging intra-Community maritime transport more heavily than internal transport would be tantamount to rendering the extension of the freedom to provide services to intra-Community maritime transport provided for in Regulation No 4055/86 to a substantial extent nugatory.
21 Where national legislation, though applicable without discrimination to all vessels whether used by national providers of services or by those from other Member States, operates a distinction according to whether those vessels are engaged in internal transport or in intra-Community transport, thus securing a special advantage for the domestic market and the internal transport services of the Member State in question, that legislation must be deemed to constitute a restriction on the freedom to provide maritime transport services contrary to Regulation No 4055/86.
22 The contested French legislation undeniably operates a scheme of charges which in the case of transport services between a French port and a port in another Member State is less favourable than that applicable to transport services provided between French ports.