50th Anniversary of the Court of Justice of the European Communities: Conference on Cooperation Between the Court of Justice and the National Courts

The aim of this report is to give a general idea of the system of preliminary rulings according to six points of reference intended to mark the principal stages in the development of the system, namely: (I) the general framework of the system; (II) the preliminary ruling system seen as a sharing of functions between the Community judicature and national courts in the interests of the uniform application of Community law; (III) the encounter by the Court of Justice through the preliminary ruling system, with the "primary" actors concerned and its strategy with respect to attempts by national governments to block individual's access to Community justice; (IV) the Court's reaction to abuses of the preliminary ruling procedure by some national courts; (V) the success of the preliminary ruling system and the means by which the Court can master the huge inflow of cases; (VI) the concerns raised by the uncoordinated creation of the new configurations of preliminary rulings in the framework of the EU and some additional conventions.