question for a preliminary ruling of the Court of Justice regarding the validity of the MoU. 5.2. In Fidelidade Mundial and Via Directa, Portuguese lower courts (Tribunal do Trabalho do Porto e Lisboa) failed to properly identify the EU law act (the MoU) that was being implemented by the Portuguese Parliament in the State Budget Act for 2012. The questions submitted were declared inadmissible because they referred to the compatibility of national law with the Charter. Article 267 TFEU is based in a clear separation of functions with national courts, according to which the Court of Justice solely has the power to rule on the interpretation or validity of EU law provisions on the basis of the facts which the national court puts before it,LV and has no jurisdiction either to apply EU law to a specific case or to decide upon the validity of a provision of domestic law in relation to EU law.LVI The poor drafting of the preliminary references submitted in Fidelidade Mundial and Via Directa may be explained by the incapacity of Portuguese lower courts to decipher the soft and hard forms of law used by the Troika institutions during the bailout.LVII In the blueprint used for the Portuguese bailout – the IMF´s programs – memoranda are documents prepared by States seeking financial support. They essentially show the political commitment that the States seeking financial assistance are willing to repay the loans granted by the Fund [Article 5 (3) of the Articles of Agreement of the IMF]. Contrary to the statement of the Portuguese Constitutional Court quoted above in section two, IMF memoranda are not binding legal documents. The breach of these memoranda by the State seeking assistance does not entail any international State responsibility. IMF financing is based on a unilateral decision from the Executive Board of the IMF that specifies the terms and conditions of the loan: ‘A Fund arrangement is a decision of the Executive Board by which a member is assured that it will be able to make purchases or receive disbursements from the Fund in accordance with the terms of the decision during a specified period and up to a specified amount. Fund arrangements are not international agreements and therefore language having a contractual connotation will be avoided in arrangements and in program documents.’LVIII Except where otherwise noted content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons 2.5 Italy License E -121