Opinion of Mr Advocate General delivered on 15 June 1995. # Peterbroeck, Van Campenhout & Cie SCS v Belgian State. # Reference for a preliminary ruling: Cour d'appel de Bruxelles - Belgium. # Power of a national court to consider of its own motion: the question whether national law is compatible with Community law. # Case C-312/93.

1. 

In this case I delivered my Opinion on 4 May 1994. By order of 13 December 1994 the Court decided to reopen the oral procedure and to hold a further hearing on the power of a national court to raise of its own motion points based on Community law in proceedings pending before it. That hearing was held jointly with the hearing in Joined Cases C-430/93 and C-431/93 van Schijndel and van Veen v Stichting Pensioenfonds voor Fysiotherapeuten. In those cases the Hoge Raad, Netherlands, referred a series of questions which raised issues similar to those raised in this case.

2. 

For the reasons given in my earlier Opinion and in my Opinion in van Schijndel and van Veen, I take the view that Community law does not require a national court to set aside a rule of national law which, in proceedings pending before the national court, requires the parties to raise claims based on Community law within a specified time-limit, provided that that rule applies to comparable claims based on national law and that it does not make excessively difficult the protection of rights based on Community law.

3.

I am accordingly of the opinion that, as I stated in my Opinion of 4 May 1994, the question referred in the present case should be answered as follows:

Community law does not preclude a rule of national law which prevents a national court from taking account of an argument based on Community law unless it has been raised by one of the parties to the proceedings within a specified time-limit, provided that that rule applies without discrimination to similar arguments based on national law and that it does not render excessively difficult the protection of rights guaranteed by Community law.