European Union – Customs and excise. The Court of Justice of the European Union gave a preliminary ruling, deciding, among other things, that arts 4(1) and 5 of Directive 98/70 should be interpreted as meaning that they did not preclude a member state from laying down in its national law quality requirements that were additional to the ones contained in that directive for the marketing of diesel fuels, such as that relating to the flash point at issue in the main proceedings, since it did not constitute a technical specification of diesel fuels relating to the protection of health and the environment for the purposes of that directive.