Monitoring References to the Court of Justice of the European Union
Preliminary references are EU law's early-warning system: every reference is a dispute a national judge could not resolve alone. EU Law Radar reports them as they are lodged — the questions quoted verbatim — and follows each case through to judgment.
France recommends the Nutri-Score, which sums up a food's nutritional value in a letter and a colour. Lactalis challenges the 2025 version, under which milk drinks are scored as beverages. The Conseil d'État asks whether the Food Information Regulation allows a Member State to recommend a label that does not set out energy and nutrients, and one that takes account of fruit, vegetables and sweeteners.
ASFINAG, which operates the toll system on Austria's motorways, refuses to register the number plates of a competitor's customers in it. The Oberster Gerichtshof assumes that the refusal would eliminate competition, has no objective justification and concerns an indispensable service. It asks whether Article 102 TFEU also requires the competitor to offer something new.
Spanish law requires airlines to carry cabin baggage free of charge. Vueling, Volotea and Ryanair include only a small bag that fits under the seat and charge for a case in the overhead locker. In proceedings brought by the Spanish public prosecutor, a court in A Coruña asks whether EU law on air fares allows that, and whether the surcharge is an unfair term.
The Dual-Use Regulation lets a Member State stop goods in transit only where they may serve weapons of mass destruction or a military end-use in a country under an arms embargo. Belgian NGOs say the Genocide Convention and the Geneva Conventions oblige Belgium to do more. The Brussels Court of Appeal asks whether the Regulation is valid and whether Article 351 TFEU lets Belgium act anyway.
The recast Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive makes producers of medicines and cosmetics pay at least 80% of the cost of removing micropollutants from wastewater. The industry's direct actions were dismissed as inadmissible; the Irish High Court has now sent the validity question to Luxembourg, and in Poland's parallel action Advocate General Kokott has proposed that the core of the scheme be annulled.
A Dutch card issuer asked a customer of twelve years to identify again online with a photo of an identity document and a selfie. The customer refused and the card was cancelled. The Hoge Raad asks whether storing a face photo for identification is biometric processing, whether the anti-money laundering rules require a copy of the identity document at all, and whether a photograph reveals racial or ethnic origin.
A Czech customs dispute over suspected imports of Chinese-origin goods turns on two OLAF missions to Taiwan, in 2013 and 2014. The Czech Supreme Administrative Court asks whether OLAF had a legal basis to investigate there, whether its reports are valid, and how much they can prove when their content cannot be verified.
An Italian criminal court may give the facts a different legal classification in its judgment without warning the accused. The new offence may have opened the way to an alternative procedure, but by then the deadline to ask for it has passed. The Corte suprema di cassazione asks whether the Directive on the right to information in criminal proceedings allows that.
In the Vivendi/Lagardère merger probe the Commission ordered Vivendi, which controls a large press group, to hand over documents found by searching its executives' files. Vivendi lost before the General Court in June. Its appeal goes further than Lagardère's: it asks the Court to declare Article 11(3) of the Merger Regulation inapplicable, because it offers no prior judicial check before journalists' sources reach the Commission.
An Albanian company holding a large Albanian judgment against Enel has spent years trying to enforce it in courts outside Albania. The Rome Court of Appeal asks whether a Member State court's decision declaring a third-State judgment enforceable is itself a 'judgment' that the Brussels I Regulation lets circulate across the Union.
The questions referred are quoted word-for-word from the official texts. Commentary is clearly separated from the record.
Each report links the authentic documents on CURIA and EUR-Lex by ECLI and CELEX number.
URLs cited in academic literature since 2012 do not change. Corrections are logged, never silently overwritten.