It is almost implied that the environmental law must be uniformly applied cross-border in order to be effective. I attach below a new case from the CJEU C-258/11, only the AG Opinion has been delivered. Except the reinforcement of the importance of the precautionary principle and the specification that an effect which is permanent or long lasting must be regarded as an adverse one in the light of the named principle, the issue of admissibility is also interesting.
It is obvious that nature can not be divided in different jurisdictions, but the reality is that we all live on a political map. A very formalistic interpretation of the admissibility issue would lead to the conclusion that the question was inadmissible.
Economic Freedoms by analogy
According to settled case-law, the provisions of the Treaty do not apply to purely internal situations in a Member State (see, to that effect, Joined Cases C‑54/88, C‑91/88 an C‑14/89 Nino and Others [1990] ECR I‑3537, paragraph 11; Case C‑134/94 Esso Española [1995] ECR I‑4223, paragraph 17; and Case C‑389/05 Commission v France [2008] ECR I‑5397, paragraph 49).
However, even in a purely internal situation the Court’s answer may nevertheless be useful to the referring court, in particular if its national law required it to grant the same rights to an own national as those which a national of another Member State in the same situation would derive from European Union law. see, Joined Cases C‑570/07 and C‑571/07 Blanco Pérez and Chao Gómez [2010] ECR I‑4629, paragraph 39; Case C‑393/08 Sbarigia [2010] ECR I‑6333, paragraph 23; and Case C‑245/09 Omalet [2010] ECR I‑0000, paragraph 15
Where domestic legislation adopts for purely internal situations the same solutions as those adopted in Union law, it is for the national court alone, in the context of the division of judicial functions between national courts and the Court of Justice under Article 267 TFEU, to assess the precise scope of that reference to Union law, the consideration of the limits which the national legislature may have placed on the application of Union law to purely internal situations being a matter for the law of the Member State concerned and, consequently, falling within the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of that Member State. Joined cases C-439/07 and C-499/07, paragraphs 58-59
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:62011CC0258:EN:HTML
Hi, when EU Law takes the form of Directives (ie, in Internal market issues), Regulations etc., Member States are bound toeithar transpose or to directly apply such laws correctly. Preliminary rulings are essential instruments to such an aim, regardless of whether the facts in cause involve transnational elements.- Greetings
I fully understand the importance of the preliminary ruling mechanism, a brilliant invention to insure the coherence and the legal certainty of the EU legal system. But my question is a bit more advanced and not yet fully answered by the Court. It refers to the notion of 'purely internal situations' where the interstate element is not present, though there is no obligation to implement EU law (in any way). However there are Member States who extend voluntarily and unilaterally the area of EU law application to this range of situations.
This means that the interest served is not the coherence of the EU, but the coherence of the national system (treating situations such as de minimis or purely domestic in the same way as the interstate ones, because there is a risk that the purely domestic ones will be worse treated i.e. reverse discriminated). The quest is whether a preliminary question in the above named context would be admissible.
In, e.g., Case C‑470/11, Garkalns, the Court has based the admissibility of a preliminary reference on the future possibility of the same, currently purely internal, situation applying to a national of another member state. Presumably this could apply in situations where there is no obligation to implement EU law, but a future issue of e.g. market access could bring the matter within its scope?
Yes, exactly even in cases where no cross-border element is de facto present, it may be very probable that a similar situation in the near future may involve a resident of another member state. Trade within the internal market is supposed to be free and even potential barriers, which only are likely to hinder the establishment & development of the internal market, are prohibited. (The market access type of approach) This is also the most usual case.
However there are some newer interesting cases coming from other fields than free movement. A very interesting one is the recent antitrust case concerned with a Hungarian Cartel Allianz Hungária Biztosító, case C-32/11. The judgment has been released today and the solution adopted does not follow the AG Opinion from 25 October 2012. I am happy to see that the Court took the view first that it had jurisdiction and second that the issue was admissible.
It's always a good feeling to discover that the Court has ruled in line with your own reasoning. http://www.concurrences.com/anglais/bulletin/news-issues/october-2012/the-ecj-advocate-general-cruz?onglet=1&lang=en
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:62011CJ0032:EN:HTML
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