- The advocate general of the Court of Justice of the European Union, Manuel Campos Sánchez-Bordona, published his conclusions on 16 July 2026 in case C-524/24, brought by Italy against Austria over restrictions on industrial vehicles along the Brenner axis. He proposes that the action be upheld in relation to the night-time, sectoral and winter traffic bans on the Brenner and Inn Valley motorways, which he considers contrary to EU law.
- Regarding the night-time ban, the advocate general notes an inconsistency between the stated objective and the exemptions granted. For the winter ban, he points to discrimination based on the destination of vehicles, which reduces the weekly period of unrestricted circulation to 46%. The sectoral ban, meanwhile, should have been reviewed after air quality values returned within legal limits.
- The A12 traffic dosing system, which limits traffic arriving from Germany to 300 vehicles per hour, is not criticised. According to the advocate general, it is an exceptional and proportionate measure. The conclusions are not binding on the Court, which will now begin its deliberations ahead of its judgment.
A further step forward in the European case brought by Italy against Austria over bans and limits on the circulation of industrial vehicles along the Brenner axis came on 16 July 2026 with the conclusions of the advocate general of the Court of Justice of the European Union, Manuel Campos Sánchez-Bordona. The dispute concerns four measures through which Vienna restricts industrial vehicle traffic on the Inn Valley motorway (A12) and the Brenner motorway (A13), a route the Court describes as a key artery of the trans-European transport network linking Italy, Germany and the rest of Northern Europe. The advocate general proposes that Italy’s action be upheld for three of the four contested measures and rejected for the fourth.
The night-time traffic ban covers an 84-kilometre section of the A12 and applies to industrial vehicles weighing more than 7.5 tonnes, with rules that vary according to the time of year and the type of day. Vienna argues that the aim is to shift NO2 emissions from night to day, when weather conditions allow pollutants to disperse more effectively. Campos Sánchez-Bordona considers that the measure does not pursue its stated objective in a coherent and systematic way: it does not seek to divert traffic to alternative routes, but only to postpone it to daytime hours, making the exemption granted to local and regional traffic on the grounds that no alternative routes exist inconsistent. According to the advocate general, Austria should have reassessed the proportionality of the measure in the light of the latest health data and considered alternatives before applying the ban throughout the year.
The sectoral ban prevents industrial vehicles from using around 65 kilometres of the A12 when carrying certain goods deemed transferable to rail. The exemptions provided do not undermine the coherence of the measure, which the advocate general considers, in principle, suitable for pursuing the environmental objective. However, since 2021, air quality limits have begun to be met on all relevant sections of the A12 and A13. From that point, according to Campos Sánchez-Bordona, Austria should have assessed whether to ease the ban or reduce the other restrictions in the same regulatory package.
The winter ban, applied in 2023 and reintroduced in 2024, prevented industrial vehicles bound for Italy, Germany or other countries reachable through those two states from using the A12 and A13 for eight consecutive hours every Saturday between January and early March, from 07:00 to 15:00. Vienna justifies the measure on road safety and congestion management grounds during periods of heavy traffic. The advocate general considers it discriminatory, because it is defined solely on the basis of the vehicles’ final destination, and inadequately justified. Combined with the other restrictions, it made international road haulage almost impossible at weekends. Over the course of a week, industrial vehicles were able to circulate without restrictions for about 46% of the total time. The safety and congestion-management needs invoked by Vienna largely stem from the cumulative effect of the other Austrian measures.
The outcome is different for the dosing system, in force since March 2018, which limits southbound industrial vehicle traffic on the A12 arriving from Germany to a maximum of 300 vehicles per hour on specific days announced in advance by the Austrian authorities. Vienna states that the mechanism does not genuinely obstruct freight traffic, is activated only when strictly necessary and for a few hours, usually in the morning, and does not set a maximum number of admitted vehicles but operates through an additional speed limit. Campos Sánchez-Bordona considers that the measure is not objectionable if, as Austria argues, it amounts to a speed limit imposed exceptionally, in rare circumstances, in response to reliable congestion forecasts. The advocate general notes that Italy has not shown that the dosing system produces a quantitative restriction on imports or a measure having equivalent effect.
The dispute forms part of a matter already addressed twice by the Court. The 2005 and 2011 judgments, known as Brenner I and Brenner II, had already found certain sectoral bans imposed by Tyrol to be incompatible with EU law. In 2016 the European Commission came close to referring Austria to the Court over the systematic breach of NO2 limits set by the air quality directive in the Tyrol area. Those limits have, however, been met since 2020, also following the tightening of existing bans and the introduction of new measures by Vienna. In the current proceedings, Italy cites breaches of Articles 34 and 35 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) on the free movement of goods, while Austria acknowledges the restrictive effect of some measures but justifies them on overriding public-interest grounds linked to environmental protection, human health and road safety.
The advocate general’s conclusions are not binding on the Court of Justice, which will now begin its deliberation phase. The final judgment, which will determine whether and to what extent Austria must amend its restriction regime on the Brenner axis, is expected in the coming months.
Pietro Rossoni
