Request for a preliminary ruling from the Procura della Repubblica di Trento (Italy) lodged on 24 January 2020 — Criminal proceedings against XK

(Case C-66/20)

Language of the case: Italian

Referring court

Procura della Repubblica di Trento

Party to the main proceedings

XK

Other Party

Finanzamt Münster

Question referred

In so far as it provides that ‘any other competent authority as defined by the issuing State which, in the specific case, is acting in its capacity as an investigating authority in criminal proceedings with competence to order the gathering of evidence in accordance with national law’, may also be regarded as an issuing authority, but also provides that, in that case, ‘before it is transmitted to the executing authority the EIO shall be validated, after examination of its conformity with the conditions for issuing an EIO under this Directive, in particular the conditions set out in Article 6.1, by a judge, court, investigating judge or a public prosecutor in the issuing State’, is Article 2(1)(c)(ii) of Directive 2014/41/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 3 April 2014 regarding the European Investigation Order in criminal matters ¹ to be interpreted as allowing a Member State to exempt an administrative authority from the obligation to have the EIO validated by defining it as a “judicial authority for the purposes of Article 2 of the Directive?

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¹ OJ 2014 L 130, p. 1.