I.G.I. Srl v Maria Grazia Cicenia and Others.
Date: 2020-01-30
44


In accordance with Article 267 TFEU, the Court has jurisdiction to give preliminary rulings concerning the interpretation of the Treaties and acts of the EU institutions. In the context of cooperation between the Court and the national courts, established by Article 267 TFEU, it is for the national courts alone to assess, in view of the special features of each case, both the need for a preliminary ruling in order to enable them to give their judgment and the relevance of the questions which they put to the Court. Consequently, where questions submitted by national courts concern the interpretation of a provision of EU law, the Court is, in principle, obliged to give a ruling (judgment of 31 May 2018, Ernst & Young, C‑633/16, EU:C:2018:371, paragraph 29 and the case-law cited).
45


Applying that case-law, the Court has repeatedly held that it has jurisdiction to give preliminary rulings on questions concerning EU provisions in situations where the facts of the cases being considered by the national courts were outside the scope of EU law but where those provisions had been rendered applicable by domestic law due to a reference made by that law to the content of those provisions. In that case, even though the facts of the main proceedings were outside the direct scope of EU law, the provisions of EU law had been made applicable by national legislation, which, in dealing with purely internal situations, follows the same approach as that provided for by EU law (see, to that effect, judgments of 18 October 1990, Dzodzi, C‑297/88 and C‑197/89, EU:C:1990:360, paragraph 37; of 17 July 1997, Leur-Bloem, C‑28/95, EU:C:1997:369, paragraphs 27 and 32; and of 15 November 2016, Ullens de Schooten, C‑268/15, EU:C:2016:874, paragraph 53).
46


When, in regulating purely internal situations, domestic legislation seeks to adopt the same solutions as those adopted in EU law in order, for example, to avoid discrimination against foreign nationals or any distortion of competition or to provide for a single procedure in comparable situations, it is clearly in the interest of the Union that, in order to forestall future differences of interpretation, provisions or concepts taken from EU law should be interpreted uniformly, irrespective of the circumstances in which they are to apply. Thus, an interpretation by the Court of provisions of EU law in purely internal situations is warranted on the ground that they have been made applicable by national law directly and unconditionally, in order to ensure that internal situations and situations governed by EU law are treated in the same way (judgments of 21 December 2011, Cicala, C‑482/10, EU:C:2011:868, paragraphs 18 and 19, and of 21 November 2019, Deutsche Post and Others, C‑203/18 and C‑374/18, EU:C:2019:999, paragraph 37).
47


Where a national court refers a question to the Court in connection with a situation that is outside the direct scope of EU law, the Court cannot, where the referring court does not indicate something other than that the national legislation in question applies without distinction to situations governed by the provisions of EU law in question and to purely internal situations, consider that the request for a preliminary ruling on the interpretation of the provisions of that law is necessary to enable that court to give judgment in the case pending before it (see, to that effect, judgment of 15 November 2016, Ullens de Schooten, C‑268/15, EU:C:2016:874, paragraph 54).
48


The specific factors that allow it to be established that the provisions of EU law have been made applicable by national law directly and unconditionally, in order to ensure that internal situations and situations governed by EU law are treated in the same way, must be apparent from the order for reference (judgment of 20 September 2018, Fremoluc, C‑343/17, EU:C:2018:754, paragraph 21).
50


In the present case, the referring court, which has exclusive jurisdiction to interpret national law under the system of judicial cooperation established in Article 267 TFEU, stated that Articles 2503, 2504-quater, 2506-ter and the final paragraph of Article 2506-quater of the Civil Code, the application of which is sought by the parties to the main proceedings in the present case, transpose Articles 12 and 19 of the Sixth Directive into national law. That is apparent, as noted by the Commission, from decreto legislativo n. 22 — Attuazione delle direttive n. 78/855/CEE e n. 82/891/CEE in materia di fusioni e scissioni societarie, ai sensi dell’art. 2, comma 1, della legge 26 marzo 1990, n. 69 (Legislative Decree No 22 implementing Directives 78/855/EEC and 82/891/EC on mergers and divisions, in accordance with Article 2(1) of Law No 69 of 26 March 1990) of 16 January 1991 (GURI No 19 of 23 January 1991).
56


In that regard, it should be noted that, according to settled case-law, questions on the interpretation of EU law referred by a national court in the factual and legislative context which that court is responsible for defining, and the accuracy of which is not a matter for the Court to determine, enjoy a presumption of relevance. The Court may refuse to rule on a question referred for a preliminary ruling by a national court only where it is quite obvious that the interpretation of EU law that is sought bears no relation to the actual facts of the main action or its purpose, where the problem is hypothetical, or where the Court does not have before it the factual or legal material necessary to give a useful answer to the questions submitted to it (judgment of 10 July 2019, Federal Express Corporation Deutsche Niederlassung, C‑26/18, EU:C:2019:579, paragraph 32 and the case-law cited).
57


According also to settled case-law, the need to provide an interpretation of EU law which will be of use to the national court makes it necessary for the national court to define the factual and legal context of the questions it is asking or, at the very least, to explain the factual circumstances on which those questions are based. The order for reference must also set out the precise reasons why the national court is unsure as to the interpretation of EU law and considers it necessary to refer a question to the Court for a preliminary ruling (judgment of 19 December 2018, Stanley International Betting and Stanleybet Malta, C‑375/17, EU:C:2018:1026, paragraph 29 and the case-law cited).
79


Since that concept is not defined, its meaning and scope must, as the Court has consistently held, be determined by considering its usual meaning, while also taking into account the context in which it occurs and the purposes of the rules of which it is part (judgment of 26 July 2017, Jafari, C‑646/16, EU:C:2017:586, paragraph 73 and the case-law cited).