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In those circumstances the Symvoulio tis Epikrateias (Council of State) decided to stay proceedings and to refer the following questions to the Court for a preliminary ruling: ‘(1) For the purposes of Article 10(g) of Directive [2014/24], is it sufficient ground, for the classification of a contract as an ‘employment contract’ under that provision, that it constitutes a contract with an employer-employee relationship or is it necessary that that contract have particular characteristics (for example with respect to the nature of the work, the contract terms, the qualifications of candidates, the procedural rules for their selection), so that the selection of each employee should be the result of an individualised judgment and subjective assessment of his or her personal qualities by the employer? Can fixed term labour contracts which are allocated on the basis of objective criteria, such as the length of time the candidate has been unemployed, the candidate’s previous experience or the number of minor children he or she has, as the result of a formal check of supporting documents and a predetermined weighting of the above criteria, such as contracts under Article 63 of Law 4430/2016, be regarded as “employment contracts” within the meaning of Article 10(g) of Directive 2014/24? (2) For the purposes of the provisions of Directive [2014/24] (Articles 1(4), 18(1) and (2), 19(1), 32 and 57, read in conjunction with recital (5) of that directive), of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (Articles 49 and 56) and of the [Charter] (Articles 16 and 52), and the principles of equal treatment, transparency and proportionality, is it permitted for public authorities to have recourse to other means, including employment contracts, to the exclusion of public procurement contracts, in order to meet the same public interest requirements, and if so, on what conditions, when that recourse is not part of the recurrent organisation of the public service, but — as in the case of Article 63 of Law 4430/2016 — takes place for a defined period of time and to deal with extraordinary circumstances, as well as for reasons that relate to the effectiveness of competition or the legitimacy of the operations of undertakings which are active in the public procurement market? Can reasons of that kind, as well as circumstances such as the weakness of the unhindered performance of public contracts or the realisation of greater financial benefit compared with a public contract, be regarded as overriding reasons in the public interest, which justify the adoption of a measure which leads to a serious restriction, in extent and duration, on business activity in the field of public procurement? (3) For the purposes of Article 1 of Directive [89/665] … does the scope of that provision exclude judicial protection against the decision of a public authority, such as the contested decisions in the main proceedings, with respect to the award of contracts that are treated as not falling within the scope of Directive 2014/24 (for example, as an ‘employment contract’), when an action is brought by an economic operator which would have a legal right to be awarded a comparable public contract and which claims that Directive [2014/24] has been unlawfully not implemented on the ground that its non-implementation was permissible?’