4.

This brings us to the wording of Article 119. The first paragraph reads as follows: “Each Member State shall during the first stage ensure and subsequently maintain the application of the principle that men and women should receive equal pay for equal work”. The principle quoted was, therefore, due to be put into operation before the end of the first stage, namely, before 1 January 1962. The Treaty forms a single entity; it is impossible to lay emphasis on some of its provisions and ignore others without upsetting the balance of the whole. Thus, in order to prevent any delay whatsoever affecting social policy pending transition to the second stage, the Commission addressed to Member States and, through them, to all the authorities competent to determine rates of pay, a recommendation, dated 20 July 1960, in which it reminded them of the need to fulfil the obligation imposed by Article 119 and indicated the means whereby this aim could be achieved. But, because, subsequently, the Member States considered that they were not in a position to comply with the prescribed time-limit, the “conference of Member States” adopted, on 30 December 1961, a resolution on Article 119 in which a fresh time-table was laid down for the phasing out of differences of treatment and laid down 31 December 1964 as the date by which all discrimination must be abolished. It should be noted that both the recommendation and the resolution emphasize the need for the Member States to establish, in their own national legal systems, a means of redress of which women can avail themselves in the event of an infringement of Article 119. This would appear to indicate that, in the view of the Commission and of the Member States, Article 119 was not “self-executing”. This leads us to the heart of the matter and to the question, which we must now consider, whether Article 119 constitutes a provision having direct effect. Under the criteria established by the case-law of this Court, a Community provision produces direct effects so as to confer on individuals the right to enforce it in the courts, provided that it is clear and sufficiently precise in its content, does not contain any reservation and is complete in itself in the sense that its application by national courts does not require the adoption of any subsequent measure of implementation either by the States or the Community. Let us consider whether, viewed in the light of the context and spirit of the Treaty, the character and content of Article 119 satisfy these conditions. The provision in question places every Member State under the unconditional obligation to ensure during the first stage, and subsequently to maintain, the application of the principle that men and women should receive equal pay for equal work. Although the form of words used: “principle that men and women should receive equal pay”, may seem too vague and the meaning of the word “principle” itself not to be very specific, the purpose of the rule is nevertheless clear: to prohibit any discrimination to the detriment of women with regard to pay. It can be argued that, even though Article 119 defines the concept of pay for the purposes of equality, the definition given of it is not so complete as to exclude all doubt about the precise meaning of the rule. Under the case-law of the Court, however, the fact that the concepts relied upon in a provision require interpretation by the national court, which may, inter alia, avail itself of the procedure in Article 177 of the Treaty, constitutes no obstacle to recognition of its direct effect (see the judgment in Case 27/67 Fink-Frucht [1968] ECR 223 and in Case 41/74 Van Duyn [1974] ECR 1337). Again, with regard to the definition of the concept of “equal work”, which is in any case partly described in the third paragraph of Article 119 (which, in addition to. using the term “same work” for work at piece rates, also refers to pay for work at time rates as “the same for the same job”), there is no need to exaggerate its importance in applying the article. It has been rightly observed that Article 119 “does not try to determine when men and women are doing the same work but only to ensure that the sex of the worker is in no way taken into account in decisions on pay. Whether the work is the same or different is a question of fact to be determined in every individual case in accordance with the responsibilities assigned to each person concerned and must not be the subject of an a priori decision any more than there is an a priori decision that two men placed on the same rate of pay perform the same work” (Levi Sandri, in Commentario CEE, vol. II, p. 956). The conclusion may therefore be drawn that, as regards the abolition, in connexion with pay, of all discrimination based on sex, Article 119 imposes an obligation which is clear, precise and unconditional. It must, however, be emphasized that Article 119 does not provide for, or rather does not always necessarily provide for, all possible implications of the principle of equal pay for men and women in its fullest sense. The application of the principle to situations other than those referred to in the aforesaid artcle (cases where the “same work”, namely identical work, is performed) lies, without doubt, outside the context in which the question of the direct applicability of the rule can arise and more properly falls within the field of social policy the definition and application of which primarily depend on the initiative and coordinating action of the Community executive and of the Member States.