§ Mr. MitchellTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, pursuant to his answer of 27 October,Official Report, column 665, if he will list those articles of the signed version of the treaty of Amsterdam, and those of the provisional version (CONF 4001/97) published on 19 June, which will require referral by courts and tribunals of member states of the European Union to the Court of Justice of the European Community 501W in Luxembourg, broken down into those which are (a) part of and (b) not part of the area of freedom, security and justice provided for in the provisional version above. [15034]
§ Mr. Doug HendersonExcept as set out in (ii) below, no article of the Treaty of Amsterdam requires courts and tribunals of Member States to refer questions to the European Court of Justice.
In the Area of Freedom Security and Justice: (i) Member States are given the option under Title VI of the Treaty on European Union to accept the jurisdiction of the ECJ to give preliminary rulings on measures adopted under this Title. (ii) under Article 73p of the new title Ma of the EC Treaty (draft Article H in the preliminary version CONF 4001/97), Member States' courts of last instance may in some circumstances be required to refer to the ECJ.
In other areas, there is no modification of the arrangements for preliminary rulings set out in Article 77 of the EC Treaty.