Little is known about the motives of national courts to request a preliminary ruling from the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) or their satisfaction with and implementation of answers. This article aims to fill this empirical gap on the basis of an analysis of judgments complemented with interviews with judges of the highest courts in the Netherlands. This article shows that judges extensively use the procedure and follow its outcome almost without exception, despite some dissatisfaction. This discontent has surprisingly not affected the courts' willingness to refer in future. The findings also downplay the bureaucratic politics and judicial empowerment theses emphasising strategic motives to refer. Instead, legal‐formalist considerations and the desire to contribute to the development of EU law explain most of the references of the Dutch Supreme Court. The decision (not) to refer of the three highest administrative courts is primarily based on practical and pragmatic considerations

中文翻译：

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荷兰最高法院和初步裁决程序：法院非常听话的对话者

关于国家法院要求欧盟法院 (CJEU) 作出初步裁决的动机或他们对答复的满意度和执行情况知之甚少。本文旨在通过对判决的分析以及对荷兰最高法院法官的访谈来填补这一经验空白。本文表明，尽管存在一些不满，但法官广泛使用该程序并几乎无一例外地遵循其结果。令人惊讶的是，这种不满并没有影响法院未来提交的意愿。调查结果还淡化了强调战略动机的官僚政治和司法授权论点。反而，法律形式主义的考虑和为欧盟法律的发展做出贡献的愿望解释了荷兰最高法院的大部分参考资料。三个最高行政法院的决定（不）提交主要基于实际和务实的考虑