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.
Italy's competition authority found that Autostrade per l'Italia engaged in an unfair commercial practice by charging full tolls while the service fell short because of its own lack of diligence, where drivers had no real alternative. The Consiglio di Stato asks whether the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive stretches that far — or whether a price that should have been cut is a matter for contract law.
A lender failed to assess a borrower's creditworthiness and then sold the loan to Hoist Italia, a buyer of consumer debt. Italian law lets the borrower claim only against the original lender, for pre-contractual liability and damages. A court in Busto Arsizio asks whether that sanction is effective enough under the Consumer Credit Directive when the debt is being collected by someone else.
The EU's €150 billion SAFE defence-loan instrument excludes contractors controlled by third countries — unless they have passed foreign-investment screening. In an Italian Ministry of Defence tender, a bidder relied on a firm holding a screening authorisation from another Member State. The first two references on SAFE ask whether the exclusion reaches companies a bidder merely relies on, and whether another Member State's clearance binds the buyer.
In June the General Court annulled Meta's gatekeeper designation for Marketplace but upheld it for Messenger. Meta now appeals the half it lost, on a single ground: that Messenger is the chat function of Facebook, not a separate number-independent communications service. The answer decides how the Digital Markets Act carves a company's products into services.
Greek law obliges every employer to pay Christmas, Easter and holiday bonuses worth two months' salary — except employers in the public sector, which stopped paying them in the crisis years. Hospital staff in Kilkis, most of whom now earn less per year than the statutory minimum wage, ask whether the Adequate Minimum Wages Directive allows that.
Latvia's air navigation provider, a state-owned company, requires its air traffic controllers to hold security clearance for classified information — which in practice excludes nationals of other Member States. A licensed EU controller challenged the exclusion. Latvia's Supreme Court asks whether the post falls within the public service exception, and whether airspace security in a 'complex geopolitical context' can justify it.
Italian law refuses to execute a European arrest warrant if the requested person's mental state makes them permanently unable to take part in proceedings with full awareness. That ground appears nowhere in the Framework Decision. The Milan Court of Appeal asks whether recital 12 and Article 1(3) allow it anyway.
Fourteen Skåne municipalities award contracts directly to a jointly owned company, relying on the in-house exception. That exception requires more than 80% of the company's activities to serve the owners. Sweden's competition authority says the company's sales to third parties on a competitive market should not count towards the 80%. The Supreme Administrative Court asks the Court.
France taxes large companies that buy back and cancel their own shares, on the amount of the capital reduction and a proportionate share of the premiums. Carrefour and Teleperformance say that is an indirect tax on the raising of capital, which Directive 2008/7 forbids outright. The Conseil d'État asks whether a tax on giving capital back can be a tax on bringing it in.
Greece notifies asylum refusals by ordinary email and treats them as served 48 hours after sending, with the appeal deadline running from that moment. There is no record of when the email was received or opened. A Thessaloniki court asks whether that presumption is compatible with the right to an effective remedy — and what happens when the email went to spam.
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.