27) Finally, the referring court asks whether, by prohibiting the use of certain trade marks, Article 13(1)(c) of Directive 2014/40 constitutes a disproportionate expropriation for the purposes of the second sentence of Article 17(1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (‘the Charter’). Trade mark proprietors to whom that provision applies are excluded from making any reasonable or relevant use of those marks and that exclusion affects them economically in the same way as a formal expropriation. The rules on labelling following from that provision have the consequence that trade mark proprietors are permanently deprived of certain essential possibilities of use referred to in Article 10 of Directive (EU) 2015/2436 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2015 to approximate the laws of the Member States relating to trade marks (OJ 2015 L 336, p. 1).

28) In those circumstances, the Verwaltungsgericht Berlin (Administrative Court, Berlin) decided to stay the proceedings and to refer the following questions to the Court for a preliminary ruling:

‘(1) (a) Is Article 7(1) and (7) of Directive 2014/40 … in conjunction with Article 7(14) of Directive 2014/40 … invalid on the ground of breach of the principle of legal certainty because it requires Member States to prohibit the placing on the market of particular tobacco products even though it is not stated clearly and precisely which of those tobacco products are to be prohibited from as early as 20 May 2016 and which only from 20 May 2020?

(b) Is Article 7(1) and (7) of Directive 2014/40 … in conjunction with Article 7(14) of Directive 2014/40 … invalid on the ground of breach of the principle of equal treatment because it differentiates, as regards the prohibitions to be adopted by Member States, on the basis of sales volumes without any valid reason for doing so?

(c) Is Article 7(1) and (7) of Directive 2014/40 … invalid on the ground of breach of the principle of proportionality and/or infringement of Article 34 TFEU because it requires Member States to prohibit, from as early as 20 May 2016, the placing on the market of tobacco products with a characterising flavour whose Union-wide sales volumes represent less than 3% in a particular product category?

(d) If the answers to Question 1(a) to 1(c) are in the negative, how is the term “product category” in Article 7(14) of Directive 2014/40 … to be understood? Must assignment to “product categories” be based on the type of characterising flavour, on the type of (flavoured) tobacco product, or on a combination of both criteria?

(e) If the answers to Question 1(a) to 1(c) are in the negative, how is it to be ascertained, with respect to a particular tobacco product, whether the 3% limit in Article 7(14) of Directive 2014/40 … has been reached, in the absence of any official and publicly accessible figures and statistics in that regard?

(2) (a) When transposing Articles 8 to 11 of Directive 2014/40 … into national law, are Member States allowed to adopt supplementary transitional arrangements?

(b) If the answer to Question 2(a) is in the negative:

— Are Article 9(6) and Article 10(1)(f) of Directive 2014/40 … invalid on the ground of breach of the principle of proportionality and/or infringement of Article 34 TFEU because they delegate the determination of certain labelling and packaging requirements to the Commission without setting it a time limit in that respect and without providing for more extensive transitional arrangements or time limits to ensure that undertakings affected have adequate time to adapt to the requirements of the directive?

— Are the second subparagraph of Article 9(1) (text of the warning), the second sentence of Article 9(4)(a) (font size), Article 10(1)(b) (smoking cessation information) and (e) (positioning of the warnings), and the first sentence of the first subparagraph of Article 11(1) (labelling) of Directive 2014/40 … invalid on the ground of breach of the principle of proportionality and/or infringement of Article 34 TFEU because they confer on Member States various rights of selection and design without setting them a time limit in that respect and without providing for more extensive transitional arrangements or time limits to ensure that undertakings affected have adequate time to adapt to the requirements of the directive?

(3) (a) Must Article 13(1)(c) in conjunction with Article 13(3) of Directive 2014/40 … be interpreted as requiring Member States to prohibit the use of information referring to taste, smell, flavourings or other additives even where that information is not promotional information and the use of the ingredients is still permitted?

(b) Is Article 13(1)(c) of Directive 2014/40 … invalid on the ground that it infringes Article 17 of the Charter …?’

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91) By Question 3(b) the referring court asks whether, because of the substantial restrictions on the use of trade marks in Article 13(1)(c) of Directive 2014/40, that provision infringes Article 17 of the Charter.

92) It must be observed that the right to property enshrined in Article 17 of the Charter extends also, in accordance with Article 17(2), to intellectual property.

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95) That consideration is reflected in the way in which Article 52(1) of the Charter requires the principle of proportionality to be implemented (judgment of 22 January 2013, Sky Österreich, C‑283/11, EU:C:2013:28, paragraph 47).

96) In accordance with that provision, any limitation on the exercise of the rights and freedoms recognised by the Charter must be provided for by law and respect the essence of those rights and freedoms and, in compliance with the principle of proportionality, must be necessary and actually meet objectives of general interest recognised by the European Union or the need to protect the rights and freedoms of others (judgment of 4 May 2016, Pillbox 38, C‑477/14, EU:C:2016:324, paragraph 160).