Joined Cases C‑692/15 to C‑694/15

Security Service Srl and Others

v

Ministero dell’Interno and Others

(Requests for a preliminary ruling from the Consiglio di Stato)

‛Reference for a preliminary ruling — Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice — Article 53(2) — Freedom of establishment and freedom to provide services — Purely internal situation — Court’s manifest lack of jurisdiction’

Summary — Order of the Court (First Chamber), 12 May 2016

1. Questions referred for a preliminary ruling — Admissibility — Need to provide the Court with sufficient information on the factual and legislative context

   (Art. 267 TFEU; Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 23; Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, Art. 94)

2. Questions referred for a preliminary ruling — Jurisdiction of the Court — Question raised concerning a dispute confined within a single Member State — Inclusion in view of the potential application of EU law to that dispute because of a prohibition on discrimination raised by national law

   (Arts 49 TFEU, 56 TFEU and 267 TFEU; Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, Art. 53(2))

1.  See the text of the decision.

   (See paras 17-21)

2.  The provisions of the TFEU on freedom of establishment and freedom to provide services are not applicable in a situation all the elements of which are confined within a single Member State. However, in certain circumstances, the purely internal nature of the situation concerned does not prevent the Court answering a question referred pursuant to Article 267 TFEU.

   This could be the case, in particular, if national law were to require the national court to allow a national of the Member State of its jurisdiction to enjoy the same rights as those which a national of another Member State would derive from EU law in the same situation, or if the request for a preliminary ruling concerned provisions of EU law to which the national law of a Member State refers in order to determine the rules applicable to a purely internal situation within that State.

   However, although the Court may, in such circumstances, give the requested interpretation, it is not for it to take such an initiative if it is not apparent from the request for a preliminary ruling that the referring court is actually under such an obligation.

   (see paras 23, 26-28)