LUXEMBOURG V PARLIAMENT AND COUNCIL

[2011] EUECJ C-176/09, Court of Justice of the European Union, 12 May 2011

Air transport - Airport charges - Action for annulment - Validity of directive - Airports whose annual traffic is over five million passenger movements per year and those with the highest passenger movements in each member state - Principles of equal treatment, proportionality and subsidiarity - Directive 2009/12/EC

The purpose of the Directive challenged by Luxembourg before the court was to establish a common framework regulating the essential features of airport charges and the way they are set, on the basis that in the absence of such a framework basic requirements in the relationship between airport managing bodies and airport users may not be met. The challenge of Luxembourg was founded upon alleged different treatment of comparable situations; treatment of different situations in the same way; breach of the principle of proportionality; and infringement of the principle of subsidiarity. The Court of Justice of the EU dismissed the action.