The Transfer of Preliminary Rulings to the EU General Court: Impact on CJEU Case Law in 2025
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18662/eljpa/12.2/267Keywords:
CJEU reform, transfer of powers, EU General Court, Regulation 2024/2019Abstract
One of the most important judicial reforms within the European Union concerned the transfer of certain powers from the Court of Justice of the European Union to the General Court of the EU, a process that began in 2022 and was completed with the adoption of Regulation 2024/2019 of the European Parliament and of the Council of April 11, 2024, whose purpose was to amend Protocol No. 3 on the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union. This article explores only marginally the provisions of the new Regulation, in the context of identifying those areas that fall within the jurisdiction of the second EU court, with the primary focus being on the analysis of post-amendment case law, thus seeking to highlight the benefits of the transfer of jurisdiction, using comparative and historical legal research methods. This structural change in the architecture of the EU judicial system, designed to redistribute the volume of cases and streamline the Court's work, clearly has an impact on the uniformity of CJEU case law. The article attempts to analyze the first statistics and the first judgments of the General Court, highlighting the legal framework of the transfer, its implementation in 2025, its impact on case law, as well as the challenges and prospects for the future.
References
Bobek, M. (2023). Preliminary rulings before the General Court: What judicial architecture for the European Union? Common Market Law Review, 60(6), 1515–1550. https://doi.org/10.54648/COLA2023115
Boghirnea, I. (2025). Brief considerations on Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2024/2019 concerning the allocation of tasks from the Court of Justice, in certain specific areas, to the General Court of the European Union. Interdisciplinary Journal of Research and Development. https://doi.org/10.56345/ijrdv12n1s117
Cheruvu, S., & Krehbiel, J. (2024). do preliminary references increase public support for European Law? Experimental evidence from Germany. International Organization, 78, 170 - 187. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0020818323000243
Court of Justice of the European Union. (2022). Request from the Court of Justice, pursuant to the second paragraph of Article 281 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, to amend Protocol No. 3 on the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union. [Press release]. https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2022-12/demande_transfert_ddp_tribunal_ro.pdf
Court of Justice of the European Union. (2024, October 1). Rules on the partial transfer of preliminary ruling jurisdiction from the Court of Justice to the General Court enter into force, [Press release]. https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2024-10/cp240154ro.pdf
Court of Justice of the European Union. (2025). https://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=306795&pageIndex=0&doclang=RO&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=2985856
Court of Justice of the European Union. (2025). https://curia.europa.eu/juris/liste.jsf?nat=or&mat=or&pcs=Oor&jur=T&for=&jge=&dates=&language=ro&pro=PREJ%252CPREJURG%252C&cit=none%252CC%252CCJ%252CR%252C2008E%252C%252C%252C%252C%252C%252C%252C%252C%252C%252Ctrue%252Cfalse%252Cfalse&oqp=&td=%3BALL&avg=&lgrec=en&lg=&page=1&cid=3025816
Court of Justice of the European Union. (2025). Nine months after being granted jurisdiction in preliminary ruling proceedings, the General Court of the European Union delivers its first preliminary ruling. [Press release]. https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2025-07/cp250084ro.pdf
EURLEX (2025). Composition of the Grand Chamber and of the Intermediate Chamber. Official Journal of the European Union, C Series. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/RO/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:C_202505486
European Parliament & Council of the European Union. (2024). Regulation (EU) 2024/2019 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 April 2024. Official Journal of the European Union. https://eur-lex.europa.eu
General Court of the European Union. (2025). https://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf;jsessionid=40294BAA040BE93850C4A78B434AA2CA?text=&docid=302345&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=2941951
Monciunskaite, B. (2024). The shifting landscape of judicial independence criteria under the preliminary reference procedure: A comment on the CJEU’s recent case law and the trajectory of Article 267 TFEU. Hague Journal on the Rule of Law, 17, 95 - 116. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40803-024-00243-2
van der Woude, M. (2025). Judicial statistics 2024: significant increase in both cases brought before the Court of Justice and cases resolved by the institution as a whole [Press release].
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Stefan cel Mare University of Suceava, Faculty of Law and Administrative Sciences, Romania & InManifest Network

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication, with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work, with an acknowledgement of the works authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g. post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in European Journal of Law and Public Administration.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g. in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as an earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
EJLPA Journal has an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs
CC BY-NC-ND