Keywords
Summary

Keywords

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1. Competition - Public undertakings and undertakings to which Member States grant special or exclusive rights - Undertaking having a monopoly over operating the public telecommunications network - Sale, on a competitive basis, of telephone equipment - Power to lay down technical standards applicable to telephone equipment and to check that competing undertakings have complied with those standards - Not permissible

(EEC Treaty, Arts 3(f), 86 and 90) )

2. Free movement of goods - Quantitative restrictions - Measures having equivalent effect - Type-approval by a public undertaking of telephone equipment not supplied by it and intended to be connected to the public network - Absence of any right of appeal to the courts - Not permissible

(EEC Treaty, Art. 30)

Summary

1. Articles 3(f), 86 and 90 of the EEC Treaty preclude a Member State from granting to the undertaking which operates the public telecommunications network the power to lay down standards for telephone equipment and to check that the economic operators meet those standards when it is itself competing with those companies on the market for that equipment.

To entrust to an undertaking which markets telephone equipment the task of drawing up specifications for such equipment, of monitoring their application and granting type-approval in respect thereof is tantamount to conferring on it the power to determine at will which equipment can be connected to the public network and thus gives it an obvious advantage over its competitors which is inimical to the equality of chances of traders, without which the existence of an undistorted system of competition cannot be guaranteed. Such a restriction on competition cannot be regarded as justified by a public service of general economic interest within the meaning of Article 90(2) of the Treaty.

2. Article 30 of the Treaty precludes a public undertaking from being given the power to approve telephone equipment which is intended to be connected to the public network and which it has not supplied if the decisions of that undertaking cannot be challenged before the courts.

Although overriding requirements concerning the protection of users as consumers of services and the protection of the public network and its proper functioning justify the existence of a procedure for type-approval of the said equipment, the absence of any possibility of challenge before the courts could enable the authority granting type-approval to adopt an attitude which was arbitrary or systematically unfavourable to imported equipment.