European Union – Approximation of national laws. The Court of Justice of the European Union gave a preliminary ruling, deciding that art 18(1)(b) of Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 should be interpreted as meaning that it could prohibit the placing on the EU market of cosmetic products containing some ingredients that had been tested on animals outside the EU, in order to market cosmetic products in third countries, if the resulting data was used to prove the safety of those products for the purposes of placing them on the EU market.