Action brought on 22 December 2014 — European Commission v Italian Republic

(Case C-601/14)

(2015/C 089/08)

Language of the case: Italian

Parties

Applicant: European Commission (represented by: E. Traversa and F. Moro, acting as Agents)

Defendant: Italian Republic

Form of order sought

The applicant claims that the Court should:

Pleas in law and main arguments

Directive 2004/80/EC institutes a system of cooperation between the authorities of the Member States to facilitate the access of victims of crime throughout the European Union to appropriate compensation in cross-border situations. The system operates on the basis of Member States’ schemes on compensation to victims of violent intentional crimes committed in their respective territories. To ensure that system of cooperation is fully operational, Article 12(2) of that directive requires the Member States to have or to introduce a scheme on compensation to victims of violent intentional crimes committed in their respective territories which guarantees fair and appropriate compensation to victims. That obligation must be understood as referring to all violent intentional crimes and not as referring to only some of them.

Italian law makes provision for a national scheme on compensation to crime victims which consists of a series of special laws on compensation for certain violent intentional crimes, but does not make provision for a general compensation scheme which covers victims of all crimes identified and categorised by the Italian Penal Code as violent intentional crimes. In particular, Italian law does not provide a scheme on compensation for violent intentional crimes which are forms of ‘common crime’ not covered by those special laws.

Consequently, it must be stated that the Italian Republic has failed to fulfil its obligations under Article 12(2) of Directive 2004/80/EC.

(1)  Council Directive 2004/80/EC of 29 April 2004 relating to compensation to crime victims (OJ 2004 L 261, p. 15).