54Secondly, it must be noted that the EU legislature expressly provided, in Article 3(3) of Regulation No 2988/95, that the Member States may apply limitation periods which are longer than that minimum period of four years laid down in Article 3(1) thereof. It did not intend to standardise the periods applicable in the area and, consequently, the entry into force of Regulation No 2988/95 cannot have had the effect of compelling the Member States to reduce to four years the limitation periods which, in the absence of rules of EU law previously in the area, they applied in the past (see, to that effect, judgment in Ze Fu Fleischhandel and Vion Trading, EU:C:2011:282, paragraph 25).
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