Keywords
Summary

Keywords

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Freedom to provide services ° Restrictions ° Roadworthiness tests for motor vehicles ° Legislation of a Member State confining the right to issue test certificates to undertakings established on its national territory ° Justification ° Protection of road safety ° Disadvantage for providers of services established in other Member States resulting from the issue of free test certificates when maintenance is carried out by an authorized undertaking ° Irrelevant ° Conformity with Directive 77/143 ° Infringement of the Treaty provisions relating to the free movement of goods and to competition ° None

(EEC Treaty, Arts 30, 59, 62 and 85; Council Directive 77/143)

Summary

Neither the provisions of the Treaty relating to the free movement of goods, to the freedom to provide services and to competition nor those of Directive 77/143 concerning roadworthiness tests for motor vehicles preclude legislation of a Member State which does not permit test certificates in respect of cars registered in that State to be issued by garages established in another Member State.

So far as concerns the freedom to provide services, the authorization as testers of operators established in another Member State, in so far as it involves the extension outside the national territory of rights and powers pertaining to the exercise of State authority, does not fall within the scope of Article 59 of the Treaty; furthermore, the fact that national legislation of that nature ° in so far as it provides that test certificates are to be issued free when the test is carried out in conjunction with the maintenance or repair of a vehicle ° may lead to a loss of custom for foreign garages which, since they are not authorized, cannot extend the benefit of that free facility to their customers when they are entrusted with maintenance work, does not support the conclusion that the Treaty has been infringed, because the monopoly with respect to the issue of test certificates which is conferred only on undertakings which, because of their location, can be supervised by the national authorities, may be justified by the requirements of road safety.

So far as Directive 77/143 is concerned, that directive imposes a territorial limitation on periodic testing and, in any event, only partially harmonizes the criteria for testing.

So far as concerns the provisions of the Treaty which relate to the free movement of goods, those provisions are not relevant, since the supply of goods to which vehicle maintenance services may give rise is only incidental to the provision of services which the maintenance represents.

So far as concerns the rules on competition, it need only be observed that the purpose of national legislation of that nature is neither to impose nor to facilitate conduct prohibited by those rules.