45Furthermore, it is clear from the second paragraph of Article 234 EC that it is for the national court to decide at what stage in the proceedings it is appropriate for that court to refer a question to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling (see Joined Cases 36/80 and 71/80 Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association and Others [1981] ECR 735, paragraph 5; Case C-236/98 JämO [2000] ECR I-2189, paragraph 30; and Schmidberger, paragraph 39).
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