The transfer to the General Court of part of the jurisdiction to give preliminary rulings
The transfer to the General Court of part of the jurisdiction to give preliminary rulings

Summary/Abstract: The 2024 amendment to the EU’s Statute of the Court of Justice transferred the competence to give preliminary rulings in six specified areas — VAT, excise duties, the Customs Code, tariff classification, passenger-rights compensation, and emissions-allowance trading — from the Court of Justice to the General Court as of 1 October 2024. To accommodate this new type of case, the General Court revised its Rules of Procedure, created a dedicated registry, established two specialised chambers for preliminary rulings, and introduced three elected Advocate Generals who assist the chambers while remaining separate from the actual preliminary-ruling proceedings. Under the “one-stop-shop” principle, the Court of Justice first decides whether a request falls within the transferred areas and, if so, transfers it to the General Court. The case is then allocated by rotation to a reporting judge in one of the two specialised chambers, notified to the parties, and opened for written observations. Between November 2024 and April 2026, 123 requests entered the one-stop-shop, 101 of which were transferred; the General Court rendered its first preliminary-ruling judgment on 9 July 2025 and, by April 2026, had delivered 17 judgments, including two Romanian cases.

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