On 19 March 2026, the Court of Justice handed down its judgment in Case C‑770/24, DB InfraGO AG, DB RegioNetz InfrastrukturGmbH v Bundesrepublik Deutschland, on the interpretation of Article 4(2) and Article 29(1) of Directive 2012/34/EU. That request has been made in proceedings between, on the one hand, DB InfraGO AG (“DB”) and DB RegioNetz Infrastruktur GmbH (“DB RegioNetz”) and, on the other hand, the Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany) concerning the determination of the amount of the charges applicable for the use of the railway infrastructure managed by to companies.

DB and DB RegioNetz collectively manage the greater part of the rail network in Germany, requiring railway undertakings which have access to their networks to pay usage charges to be approved in advance by the Federal Network Agency. By decision of 22 March 2024, the latter granted DB and DB RegioNetz its approval in respect of the charges referred thereto for the provision of the minimum access package for the 2024/2025 working timetable period, approving their proposal to divide the sector of short-distance rail passenger transport services (“SPNV sector”) and other passenger transport services provided under a public service contract into two segments for each Land. The Federal Network Agency, however, considered that the amount of the charges for the SPNV sector, as requested by DB and DB RegioNetz, could not be approved since it had to be calculated for each of the two segments in respect of each Land, in such a manner that they correspond to the average charges for the relevant transport services in respect of each Land in the 2020/2021 working timetable period plus the fixed annual rate of increase.

Since the Federal Network Agency decided to increase the amount of the charges applicable in the long-distance rail passenger transport services sector and in the rail freight services one, DB and DB RegioNetz brought an action against the decision at issue before the Verwaltungsgericht Köln (Administrative Court of Cologne; the “referring court”) which, in light of the need to interpret the relevant European legislation, decided to stay the proceedings and to ask to the Court of Justice whether Article 4(2) and Article 29(1) of Directive 2012/34 must be interpreted as precluding national legislation which requires the railway infrastructure manager to calculate the amount of the charges applicable in the SPNV sector by means of a mathematical formula consisting of multiplying the amount of the average charges levied during a reference period by a fixed annual rate of increase laid down by law.

According to the Court, the system established by Directive 2012/34 seeks to ensure the management independence of the railway infrastructure managers, which would be invalidated if their role were to be confined to calculating the amount of the charge in each individual case by applying a formula established in advance, and therefore without having a degree of flexibility.