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.
Hungary obliges retailers of household goods with a turnover above HUF 1 billion to cap their margins on certain products at their earlier average, and at most 15%, and to keep those products in stock. Rossmann was fined. The Kúria asks whether the Services Directive and freedom of establishment allow such a scheme, and whether a refunded fine must carry interest.
France has banned nicotine pouches outright, from sale and use to manufacture and export. The Conseil d'État upheld the ban on selling and using them, but asks the Court of Justice whether France may also forbid producing, transporting and exporting pouches meant only for sale in other Member States.
Since March 2025 Italian law treats people born abroad with another nationality as never having acquired Italian citizenship by descent, unless they meet narrow conditions. The Corte costituzionale considers that compatible with EU law, but has asked the Court of Justice anyway: do Article 9 TEU and Article 20 TFEU preclude the rule?
The second Hungarian reference against Google on chatbots and the press publishers' right goes further than the first: it asks about summaries rather than copied passages, about grounding on current articles, and whether a publisher that did not opt out has consented. It arrives on the day Advocate General Szpunar proposed that the Court leave training aside in Like Company.
A Ukrainian company is suing the Russian Federation in Latvia and wants a foreign judgment enforced against funds frozen under the EU's Russia sanctions. The Riga Regional Court asks whether a court may authorise their release, whether the public-interest exception covers compensation for war crimes or aggression, and how State immunity and public policy fit in.
A Dutch rent clause lets the landlord raise the rent each year by indexation plus a surcharge. In 2024 the Hoge Raad held that the two are separate terms and that a capped surcharge is not in itself unfair. Nineteen tenants of an Amsterdam housing association ask, through the Rechtbank Amsterdam, whether the Court of Justice agrees.
Last year the Court held that a decision of a Polish last-instance body that is not an independent tribunal, sending a case back to a lower court, must be regarded as null and void. The Regional Court in Wrocław asks what the lower court must then do: hear the case afresh without the binding interpretation, or decide the appeal on a point of law itself.
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 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.