Philippe Gruslin v Beobank SA.
Date: 2014-09-11
22. Secondly, under the second paragraph of Article 252 TFEU, it is the duty of the Advocate General, acting with complete impartiality and independence, to make, in open court, reasoned submissions on cases which, in accordance with the Statute of the Court of Justice, require the Advocate General’s involvement. In carrying out that task, the Advocate General may, where appropriate, analyse a request for a preliminary ruling by placing it within a context which is broader than that strictly defined by the referring court or by the parties to the main proceedings. Since the Court is not bound either by the Advocate General’s Opinion or by the reasoning on which it is based, it is not absolutely necessary to reopen the oral part of the procedure each time the Advocate General raises a point of law which was not the subject of debate between the parties (the judgment in Pohotovosť , C‑470/12, EU:C:2014:101, paragraph 22 and the case-law cited).
27. According to the Court’s settled case-law, the procedure provided for by Article 267 TFEU is an instrument of cooperation between the Court and national courts by means of which the former provides the latter with the criteria for the interpretation of EU law which they need in order to decide the disputes before them (see, inter alia, the judgment in Fish Legal and Shirley , C‑279/12, EU:C:2013:853, paragraph 29 and the case-law cited).
28. 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 (see, inter alia, the judgment in Fish Legal and Shirley , EU:C:2013:853, paragraph 30 and the case-law cited).
32. The Court has consistently held that it follows from the need for uniform application of EU law and from the principle of equality that the terms of a provision of EU law which makes no express reference to the law of the Member States for the purpose of determining its meaning and scope must normally be given an autonomous and uniform interpretation throughout the European Union, which must take into account the context of the provision and the objective pursued by the legislation in question (the judgment in Fish Legal and Shirley , EU:C:2013:853, paragraph 42 and the case-law cited).
33. It follows from the second to fourth recitals in the preamble to the UCITS Directive that, in order to ensure that UCITS units are marketed freely within the European Union, the UCITS Directive seeks to coordinate national laws governing UCITS, in order, first, to approximate, within the European Union, the conditions of competition between those undertakings, and, secondly, to ensure more effective and more uniform protection for unit-holders. To that end, the UCITS Directive establishes common basic rules governing the authorisation, supervision, structure, and activities of UCITS and the information which they must publish.