Brussels, 05/07/2001 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission sent a statement of objections to the Italian state railway company Ferrovie dello Stato (FS) asserting that the latter had infringed the European competition rules by refusing to open the Italian rail transport market. This refusal prevents Georg Verkehrsorganisation (GVG), a small German railway operator, from providing passenger rail transport services from German to Milan, thus depriving the customers of the benefits, which may be brought by competition in terms of service providers and prices.
GVG has been trying to penetrate the Italian market for railway transport since 1991, to provide international passenger transport services from various German cities towards Milan, via Bale and Domodossola. GVG underlines that its service provided greater comfort and allowed to gain close to an hour on the present services. On the train path Bale-Milan, it would be in competition with "Cisalpin", a joint venture between FS and the Swiss railway operators. To provide this service, GVG must be able to gain access to the Swiss and Italian network. The company gained the necessary path in Switzerland, but not in Italy, where only FS is able to grant access to the network, since it is the manager of the infrastructures. However, FS refuses to provide GVG the appropriate train path between Domodossola and Milan and has not even informed it of the rental price for such a path. This attitude is incompatible with Directive 91/440, which constitutes a first stage in the liberalisation of the railways in the EU. Moreover, in its statement of objections, the Commission feels that the repeated and continuing refusal by FS to grant other companies access to the Italian rail transport market constitutes an abuse of dominant position. FS has two months to reply. If the Commission maintains its position, it could possible take a decision against the Italian company and this could include fines.