ruling rendered by the Grand Chamber in the Taricco case (case C-105/14) on 8 September 2015, the European Court of Justice stated inter alia that if a national rule concerning limitation periods for criminal offences prevents the imposition of effective and dissuasive penalties in a significant number of cases of serious fraud affecting the financial interests of the EU, national courts must give full effect to Article 325(1) TFEU, if need be by disapplying those domestic provisions which have an adverse effect on the fulfilment of the Member States obligations under that same Article.In order no 24 of 26 January 2017,[1] the Italian Constitutional Court (hereinafter, the ICC) sought a preliminary reference from the ECJ concerning the meaning to be attributed to Article 325 TFEU on the basis of the Taricco judgment. More specifically, the ICC questioned whether Article 325 TFEU must be interpreted as requiring the criminal courts to disregard national legislation concerning limitation periods even when: 1) ...there is not a sufficiently precise legal basis for setting aside such legislation; 2) ...[that] limitation is part of the substantive criminal law in the Member States legal system and is subject to the principle of legality; and 3) ... the setting aside [of] such legislation would contrast with the supreme principles of the constitutional order of the Member State or with the inalienable human rights recognized under the Constitution of the Member State.In the Italian legal system EU law enjoys primacy over national norms but with a (counter-)limit (in practice never applied to EU law), ie, compliance with the supreme principles of the Italian constitutional order and inalienable human rights. In order no 24/2017, the ICC affirms that the principle of legality in criminal matters is an expression of a supreme principle of the legal order laid down in Article 25 (2) of the Constitution,[2] which requires that criminal rules must be precise and must not have retroactive effect. Since, in the ICCs view unlike the interpretation of Article 49 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and Article 7 of the ECHR given by the ECJ the principle of legality also covers limitation periods (and not only criminal offences and penalties), and no offender could reasonably have expected, before the Taricco judgment, that Article 325 TFEU would require a longer statute of limitations, the ICC envisages the possibility of a clash between the obligations flowing from Article 325 TFEU and a supreme constitutional principle which prohibits the retroactive application of criminal law in malam partem, being that this principle is part of the national identity protected by Article 4(2) TEU. Were this possibility inescapable, the ICC would be under a duty to prevent the application of EU law.Furthermore, the criteria (ie, systematic impunity and the seriousness of the alleged tax fraud) to be employed by Italian courts in order to decide on the disapplication of domestic rules on limitation periods are vague, ambiguous ... and in any case cannot be substantiated through interpretation. In this regard, it is not possible for EU law to set an objective as