Judgment — ECLI:EU:C:2013:718
Date: 2013-11-07
Language of the case: Italian
Court formation: Fifth Chamber
Subject matter: Principles, objectives and tasks of the Treaties
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling - decision unnecessary;Reference for a preliminary ruling - inadmissible
Origin: Italy

Summary — Judgment of the Court (Fifth Chamber), 7 November 2013 1. Questions referred for a preliminary ruling — Jurisdiction of the Court — Limits — Purely internal situation — Interpretation sought because of a general renvoi made by a provision of national law to principles derived from the European Union legal order — National legislation providing for specific implementing rules to the internal situation at issue — Non-application of the principles derived from the European Union legal order — Lack of jurisdiction of the Court (Art. 267 TFEU) 2. Questions referred for a preliminary ruling — Admissibility — Limits — Clearly irrelevant questions and hypothetical questions put in a context not permitting a useful answer (Art. 267 TFEU) 1. The Court has jurisdiction to give preliminary rulings on questions concerning provisions of EU law in situations where the facts of the cases being considered by the national courts are outside the scope of EU law, but in which domestic law refers to the content of those provisions of European Union in order to determine the rules applicable to a situation which is purely internal to the State concerned. Such is the case where the provisions of EU law at issue have been made directly and unconditionally applicable by national law to such situations where the provisions of national law do not allow the interpretation of those EU rules by the Court to be departed from. Accordingly, where national legislation contains both specific rules for the resolution of a question of domestic law, and a provision referring to principles deriving from EU law it must be made clear by that national legislation that it is not those specific national rules but the principles of EU law which are to be applied when resolving that very question of domestic law. (see paras 21-23, 33, 34) 2. See the text of the decision. (see para. 40)