the group Railroads of the State is object of an investigation of the EU commission



The EU commission has started an investigation in order to estimate if some compensations for obligation of public service and the transfer under gratuitous title of asset in the within of the Italian market of the rail shipment of goods, of which they benefit societies pertaining to the group Italian Railroads of the State and in particular its controlled Trenitalia, assets in the transport services is passengers who goods, and FS Logistic, is compatible with the norms EU in matter of aids of State. With the investigation, that it will offer to interested third party the opportunity to introduce observations, the Commission intends to ascertain if such measures have conferred an economic advantage to Trenitalia or other societies of the group FS to the detriment of the competitors.

In particular, the EU commission has specified that the objective is to estimate the truthfulness of the assertions introduced in two regarding denunciations two distinguished measures. The first measure consists under gratuitous title in the transfer of some assets of the carried out railway infrastructure from the manager of the infrastructure, Italian Railway Net, in favor of the two societies of transport goods Logistic Trenitalia and FS. "The Italian authorities - Brussels has explained - consider that such operations re-enter in the redistribuzione of asset carried out in occasion of the reorganization of the railway group in first years 2000. However, the transfers have taken place between 2007 and 2011 and Italy has up to the present not supplied evidences that demonstrate that they were decided to the age of the first reorganization. In any case, a redistribuzione of this type inside of the group without an adapted compensation - it has found the Commission - can confer to the beneficiary an undue economic advantage, as of it improves the market position regarding the competitors. Considered that the main operators on the Italian market of the rail shipment of goods operate also to international level, the transfers of asset in object could affect also the exchanges between Member States".

The second measure object of the investigation is represented by the compensations that Trenitalia receives from 2000 for the implementation of obligation of public service in the field of the transport goods. "The Italian authorities - it has clarified the EU commission - support that the obligation of public service is necessary in order to guarantee a universal service of transport goods from and towards southern Italy, to the aim to maintain and to strengthen the regional cohesion and the territorial balance. The Commission recognizes certainly that the obligations of public service are important in order to supply to the city services of transport of elevated quality. However, in this phase, it nutre doubts on the necessity to preview obligation of public service for the transport of goods in a substantial part of the Italian territory, in particular to light of the fact that the drafts towards the north of the Country and those international ones already are served by concurrent railway companies without such compensations".