Traditionally, the Court of Justice has done its utmost to assist national courts in interpreting and applying EU law if national proceedings so required. In line with this spirit of co-operation, the Court seemed ready to interpret the procedural requirements laid down in Article 267 TFEU rather broadly, and gave little weight to procedural errors made by national courts when referring cases under that provision. Indeed, the Court sought to encourage the use of the preliminary ruling procedure. However, after experiencing a significant surge in its judicial activity over the last years, a new trend seems to emerge in the Court’s case law: the judges in Luxembourg more and more rigorously assess whether the formal preconditions for the Court’s jurisdiction and the admissibility of the questions referred by national courts under Article 267 TFEU are fulfilled. National judges as well as lawyers should be aware of this new judicial trend.