Belgische Petroleum Unie VZW and Others v Belgische Staat.
Date: 2013-01-31
23. In that regard, it should be borne in mind that the fact that the parties to the main action did not raise a point of European Union law before the referring court does not preclude the latter from bringing the matter before the Court of Justice. In providing that a request for a preliminary ruling may be submitted to the Court where ‘a question is raised before any court or tribunal of a member state’, the second and third paragraphs of Article 267 TFEU are not intended to restrict this procedure exclusively to cases where one or other of the parties to the main action has taken the initiative of raising a point concerning the interpretation or the validity of European Union law, but also extend to cases where a question of this kind is raised by the court or tribunal itself, which considers that a decision thereon by the Court of Justice is ‘necessary to enable it to give judgment’ (Case 126/80 Salonia  [1981] ECR 1563, paragraph 7, and judgment of 8 March 2012 in Case C-251/11 Huet , paragraph 23).
24. Moreover, according to settled case-law, in proceedings under Article 267 TFEU, it is solely for the national court before which the dispute has been brought, and which must assume responsibility for the subsequent judicial decision, to determine in the light of the particular circumstances of the case both the need for a preliminary ruling in order to enable it to deliver judgment and the relevance of the questions which it submits to the Court. Consequently, where the questions submitted concern the interpretation of European Union law, the Court is in principle bound to give a ruling (Case C-341/05 Laval un Partneri  [2007] ECR I-11767, paragraph 45, and Joined Cases C-317/08 to C-320/08 Alassini and Others  [2010] ECR I-2213, paragraph 25).
27. It should be borne in mind, as a preliminary point, that, where a matter is regulated in a harmonised manner at European Union level, any national measure relating thereto must be assessed in the light of the provisions of that harmonising measure (see Case C-37/92 Vanacker and Lesage  [1993] ECR I-4947, paragraph 9, Case C-324/99 DaimlerChrysler  [2001] ECR I-9897, paragraph 32, and Case C-132/08 Lidl Magyarország  [2009] ECR I-3841, paragraphs 42 and 46).
39. In that regard, it should be noted that Directive 2003/30, which, according to Article 1, aimed at promoting the use of biofuels to replace diesel or petrol for transport purposes in each Member State, did not impose any requirements on the Member States in regard to the method of attaining the national indicative targets referred to in Article 3(1), but left them freedom of choice in this regard as to the type of measures to be adopted (see Case C-201/08 Plantanol  [2009] ECR I-8343, paragraph 35).
40. It is therefore apparent from recital 19 of Directive 2003/30 that Member States had various means at their disposal for achieving the objectives laid down by that Directive, including a tax exemption scheme, financial assistance for the processing industry or the establishment of a compulsory minimum percentage of biofuels for oil companies (see Plantanol  judgment, paragraph 36).
49. It is settled case-law that Directive 98/34 is designed to protect, by means of preventive control, the free movement of goods, which is one of the foundations of the European Union, and that this control serves a useful purpose in that technical regulations falling within the scope of that directive may constitute obstacles to trade in goods between Member States, such obstacles being permissible only if they are necessary to satisfy compelling requirements relating to the public interest (see Case C-303/04 Lidl Italia [2005] ECR I-7865, paragraph 22, Case C-433/05 Sandström  [2010] ECR I-2885, paragraph 42, and Case C-361/10 Intercommunale Intermosane and Fédération de l’industrie et du gaz [2011] ECR I-5079, paragraph 10).
50. As the obligation to notify referred to in the first subparagraph of Article 8(1) of Directive 98/34 is essential for achieving that control, the effectiveness of such control will be that much greater if that directive is interpreted as meaning that failure to observe the obligation to notify constitutes a substantive procedural defect such as to render the technical regulations in question inapplicable and therefore unenforceable against individuals (see Lidl Italia , paragraph 23 and Sandström , paragraph 43).
51. In this context, it should be recalled that it follows from Article 1(11) of Directive 98/34 that the definition of ‘technical regulation’ can be broken down into three categories: first, the ‘technical specification’ within the meaning of Article 1(3) of that directive; second, the ‘other requirements’, as defined in Article 1(4) of that directive; and, third, the prohibition of the manufacture, importation, marketing or use of a product referred to in Article 1(11) of the directive (see Case C-267/03 Lindberg  [2005] ECR I-3247, paragraph 54, Case C-20/05 Schwibbert  [2007] ECR I-9447, paragraph 34 and Intercommunale Intermosane and Fédération de l’industrie et du gaz , paragraph 11).