ddrg/super_eurlex huggingface dataset:
Case C-128/04

Criminal proceedings

against

Annic Andréa Raemdonck

and

Raemdonck‑Janssens BVBA

(Reference for a preliminary ruling from the Rechtbank van eerste aanleg te Dendermonde)

(Road transport – Social legislation – Regulation (EEC) No 3821/85 – Requirement to install and use a tachograph – Regulation (EEC) No 3820/85 – Exception for vehicles carrying material and equipment)

Judgment of the Court (Third Chamber), 17 March 2005.

Summary of the Judgment

Transport – Road transport – Social legislation – Exceptions – Requirement to install and use a tachograph – Exceptions for vehicles carrying material and equipment – Meaning – Goods which are required for the performance of the work involved in the main activity of the driver – Main activity which is not driving the vehicle – Included

(Council Regulations No 3820/85, Art. 13(1)(g), and No 3821/85, Art. 3(2))

The terms ‘material or equipment’ in Article 13(1)(g) of Regulation No 3820/85 on the harmonisation of certain social legislation relating to road transport must, in the context of the exemption scheme provided for in Article 3(2) of Regulation No 3821/85 on recording equipment in road transport, be construed as covering not only ‘tools and instruments’, but also the goods, such as building materials or cables, which are required for the performance of the work involved in the main activity of the driver of the vehicle concerned. Such an activity, which for the purposes of Article 13(1)(g) cannot consist of driving the vehicle, must constitute the main activity of that driver and not that of the undertaking concerned.

(see paras 16, 24, operative part)
Judgment of the Court (Fourth Chamber) of 29 June 2006 – Commission v Italy

(Case C-487/04)

Failure of a Member State to fulfil obligations – Council Regulation (EC)No 1255/1999 and Commission Regulation (EC) No 2799/1999 – Milk and milk products – Skimmed-milk powder – System of traceability of skimmed-milk powder

1. Agriculture – Common organisation of the markets – Milk and milk products – Aid for skimmed milk and skimmed-milk powder intended for animal feed – Regulation No 2799/1999 – Conditions for granting (Commission Regulation No 2799/1999) (see paras 29-30)

2. Actions for failure to fulfil obligations – Examination of merits by the Court – Situation to be taken into consideration – Situation on expiry of the period laid down in the reasoned opinion (Art. 226 EC) (see para. 31)

3. Member States – Obligations – Failure to fulfil obligations – Retention of a provision of national law which is incompatible with Community law (Art. 226 EC) (see para. 33)

Re:

Failure of a Member State to fulfil obligations – Infringement of Council Regulation (EC) No 1255/1999 of 17 May 1999 on the common organisation of the market in milk and milk products (OJ 1999 L 160, p. 48) and Commission Regulation (EC) No 2799/1999 of 17 December 1999 laying down detailed rules for applying Regulation (EC) No 1255/1999 as regards the grant of aid for skimmed milk and skimmed-milk powder intended for animal feed and the sale of such skimmed-milk powder (OJ 1999 L 340, p. 3) – Institution of a system of traceability of milk powder not provided for by Community legislation.

Operative part

The Court:

1. Declares that by unilaterally instituting a system of traceability of skimmed-milk powder for certain uses, not provided for by harmonised provisions of Community law applicable to the sector, the Italian Republic has failed to fulfil its obligations under Council Regulation (EC) No 1255/1999 of 17 May 1999 on the common organisation of the market in milk and milk products and Commission Regulation (EC) No 2799/1999 of 17 December 1999 laying down detailed rules for applying Regulation (EC) No 1255/1999 as regards the grant of aid for skimmed milk and skimmed-milk powder intended for animal feed and the sale of such skimmed-milk powder;
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Social policy – Protection of the health and safety of workers – Directive 93/104 concerning certain aspects of the organisation of working time

(Council Directive 93/104, Art. 7)

Summary

Article 7 of Directive 93/104 concerning certain aspects of the organisation of working time, as amended by Directive 2000/34, must be interpreted as precluding a national provision which, during a contract of employment, permits days of annual leave, within the meaning of Article 7(1) of the directive, which are not taken in the course of a given year, to be replaced by an allowance in lieu in the course of a subsequent year.

The entitlement of every worker to paid annual leave must be regarded as a particularly important principle of Community social law from which there can be no derogations and the implementation of which by the competent national authorities must be confined within the limits expressly laid down by the directive itself. That directive embodies the rule that a worker must normally be entitled to actual rest, with a view to ensuring effective protection of his safety and health, since it is only where the employment relationship is terminated that Article 7(2) permits an allowance to be paid in lieu of paid annual leave.

(see paras 28-29, 35, operative part)
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Social policy – Approximation of laws – Collective redundancies – Directive 75/129

(Council Directive 75/129, Art. 1(2)(d))

Summary

Directive 75/129 on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to collective redundancies must be interpreted as being applicable in the case of collective redundancies that result from the definitive termination of the operation of an undertaking or establishment which has been decided on by the employer of his own accord without a prior judicial decision, and the exception laid down in Article 1(2)(d) of that directive cannot preclude its application.

(see para. 45, operative part)
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Agriculture – Common organisation of the markets – Export refunds – Processed goods not falling under Annex II to the Treaty – Conditions for granting

(Commission Regulation No 1222/94, Art. 7(1))

Summary

The third subparagraph of Article 7(1) of Regulation No 1222/94 of 30 May 1994 laying down common detailed rules for the application of the system of granting export refunds on certain agricultural products exported in the form of goods not covered by Annex II to the Treaty, and the criteria for fixing the amount of such refunds, as amended by Regulation No 229/96, is to be interpreted as not precluding an exporter from providing evidence by other means where it is unable to provide in support of its export declaration documentary evidence relating to the quantities of products actually used in the manufacture of exported goods, even in a case of force majeure. The national authorities are to assess that other means of evidence, in accordance with the detailed rules laid down in the national law, provided, however, that those rules do not affect either the scope or effectiveness of Community law and that, therefore, the degree of proof required by the said Article 7(1) is not diminished. For that purpose, national authorities must also take into consideration documents previously exchanged with the exporter when the application is made under the simplified procedure provided for in the third subparagraph of Article 3(2) of that regulation.

(see paras 29-30, operative part)
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Subject of the case

Operative part



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Member States

–

Obligations under Community law

–

Failure to fulfil obligations

–

National legal system pleaded as justification

–

Not permissible (Art. 226 EC) (see para. 8

)

Subject of the case

Re:

Failure of a Member State to fulfil obligations – Infringement of Article 18(1) and the first and third indents of Article 19i of Council Regulation (EEC) No 2847/93 of 12 October 1993 establishing a control system applicable to the common fisheries policy (OJ 1993 L 261, p. 1) – Failure to provide the prescribed information

Operative part

Operative part:

The Court:

1. Declares that by failing to provide the information required under the first and third indents of Article 19i of Council Regulation (EEC) No 2847/93 of 12 October 1993 establishing a control system applicable to the common fisheries policy, as amended by Council Regulation (EC) No 2635/97 of 18 December 1997, the French Republic has failed to fulfil its obligations under that regulation;

2. Orders the French Republic to pay the costs.
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Subject of the case

Operative part



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Actions for failure to fulfil obligations – Examination of merits by the Court – Situation to be taken into consideration – Situation on expiry of the period laid down in the reasoned opinion (Art. 226 EC) (see para. 10)

2. Member States – Obligations under Community law – Failure to fulfil obligations – National system pleaded as justification – Not permissible (Art. 226 EC) (see para. 12)

Subject of the case

Re:

Failure of a Member State to fulfil obligations – Breach of Articles 15(4) and 18(1) of Council Regulation (EEC) No 2847/93 of 12 October 1993 establishing a control system applicable to the common fisheries policy (OJ 1993 L 261, p. 1) – Failure to notify the data concerning the species and quantities of fish caught.

Operative part

Operative part

1. By failing to notify the data referred to in Articles 15(4) and 18(1) of Council Regulation (EEC) No 2847/93 of 12 October 1993 establishing a control system applicable to the common fisheries policy for 1999 and 2000, the Italian Republic has failed to fulfil its obligations under those provisions;

2. The Italian Republic is ordered to pay the costs .
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Subject of the case

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Actions for failure to fulfil obligations

–

Examination of merits by the Court

–

Situation to be taken into consideration

–

Situation on expiry of the period laid down in the reasoned opinion (Art. 226 EC) (see para. 8

)

Subject of the case

Re:

Failure of a Member State to fulfil obligations – Failure to transpose within the prescribed period, Directive 2001/19/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 May 2001 amending Council Directives 89/48/EEC and 92/51/EEC on the general system for the recognition of professional qualifications and Council Directives 77/452/EEC, 77/453/EEC, 78/686/EEC, 78/687/EEC, 78/1026/EEC, 78/1027/EEC, 80/154/EEC, 80/155/EEC, 85/384/EEC, 85/432/EEC, 85/433/EEC and 93/16/EEC concerning the professions of nurse responsible for general care, dental practitioner, veterinary surgeon, midwife, architect, pharmacist and doctor (OJ 2001 L 206, p. 1).

Operative part

Operative part:

The Court:

1. Declares that, by failing to adopt, within the prescribed period, all the laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to ensure the complete transposition of Directive 2001/19/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 May 2001 amending Council Directives 89/48/EEC and 92/51/EEC on the general system for the recognition of professional qualifications and Council Directives 77/452/EEC, 77/453/EEC, 78/686/EEC, 78/687/EEC, 78/1026/EEC, 78/1027/EEC, 80/154/EEC, 80/155/EEC, 85/384/EEC, 85/432/EEC, 85/433/EEC and 93/16/EEC concerning the professions of nurse responsible for general care, dental practitioner, veterinary surgeon, midwife, architect, pharmacist and doctor, the Federal Republic of Germany has failed to fulfil its obligations under that directive;

2. Orders the Federal Republic of Germany to pay the costs .
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Social security for migrant workers – Equal treatment – Sickness benefits

(Council Regulation No 1408/71, Art. 3(1))

Summary

Article 3(1) of Regulation No 1408/71 precludes the application of a daily sick pay scheme implemented by a Member State under which a migrant worker, whose spouse resides in another Member State, is automatically placed in a tax class which is less favourable – namely that applicable to workers who are married but permanently separated from their spouse – than that of a married national worker whose spouse resides in the Member State concerned and is not in paid employment, and which does not allow account to be taken retroactively, as regards the amount of that sick pay, which is calculated according to net income, itself determined by tax class, of a subsequent correction of that class following an express application by the migrant worker based on his actual marital status.

The principle of equal treatment, as laid down in Article 3(1) of Regulation No 1408/71, prohibits not only overt discrimination based on the nationality of the beneficiaries of social security schemes but also all covert forms of discrimination which, through the application of other distinguishing criteria, lead in fact to the same result.

Even if such a system does not in itself lay down, for the purposes of the calculation of the amount of daily sick pay, any formal difference in treatment between national workers and those from another Member State, its application is likely to place a migrant worker, whose spouse continues to reside frequently in the Member State of origin, in a legal or factual position which is less favourable than that in which a national worker, in the same circumstances, would find himself.

That difference in treatment cannot be justified by arguments relating to the administrative simplification of the procedures for allocating daily sick pay, the function of the latter in ensuring that the workers concerned receive an income which allows them to meet their subsistence needs, or the complexity of the calculations needed for the payment of daily sick pay. Such aims do not preclude subsequent correction of the amount of sick pay, inter alia by the introduction of a mechanism whereby the amount of that pay is retroactively adjusted to take account of the actual position of the migrant worker concerned.

(see paras 23, 29, 31, 34, 36-38, 40, operative part)
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1. Free movement of goods – Customs duties – Charge having an equivalent effect

(Arts 23 EC and 133 EC; EEC-Algeria Cooperation Agreement, Art. 9)

2. Free movement of goods – Customs duties – Charge having an equivalent effect

(Art. 25 EC)

Summary

1. An environmental tax on methane gas imported from Algeria for the purpose of distribution and consumption of that gas in a Member State is contrary both to Articles 23 EC and 133 EC and to Article 9 of the Cooperation Agreement between the EEC and Algeria.

(see paras 39-40, operative part)

2. In so far as methane gas imported from Algeria and subjected to an environmental tax in a Member State is subsequently exported to other Member States, that tax is likely to affect intra-Community trade, contrary to Article 25 EC.

(see para. 41, operative part)
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Social policy – Protection of the safety and health of workers – Directive 89/391 on the introduction of measures to encourage improvements in the safety and health of workers at work

(Council Directive 89/391, Arts 5(1) and (4), and 6 to 12)

Summary

The Commission has not established to the requisite legal standard that, in qualifying the duty on employers to ensure the safety and health of workers in every aspect related to the work by limiting that duty to what is reasonably practicable, the United Kingdom has failed to fulfil its obligations under Article 5(1) and (4) of Directive 89/391 on the introduction of measures to encourage improvements in the safety and health of workers at work.

As regards the scope of the employer’s liability for the consequences of any event detrimental to workers’ health and safety, Article 5(1) of Directive 89/391 places the employer under a duty to ensure that workers have a safe working environment, the meaning of which is specified in Articles 6 to 12 of Directive 89/391 and by various individual directives which lay down the preventive measures to be adopted in certain specific industrial sectors. That provision simply embodies the general duty of safety to which the employer is subject, without specifying any form of liability and in particular no-fault liability.

The first subparagraph of Article 5(4) of Directive 89/391, which allows Member States the option of limiting employers’ responsibility ‘where occurrences are due to unusual and unforeseeable circumstances, beyond the employers’ control, or to exceptional events, the consequences of which could not have been avoided despite the exercise of all due care’, is intended to clarify the scope of certain provisions of Directive 89/391 by explaining the margin of manoeuvre available to the Member States in transposing those provisions into national law. On the other hand, it cannot be inferred from that provision, on the basis of an interpretation a contrario, that the Community legislature intended to impose upon Member States a duty to prescribe a no-fault liability regime for employers.

(see paras 41-42, 48-49, 58)
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1. Freedom of movement for persons – Workers – Regulation No 1612/68 – Concept of ‘migrant worker’

(Council Regulation No 1612/68)

2. Freedom of movement for persons – Workers – Equal treatment – Social advantages

(Council Regulation No 1612/68, Art. 7(2))

Summary

1. A national of a Member State who, while maintaining his employment in that State, has transferred his residence to another Member State and has since then carried on his occupation as a frontier worker can claim the status of migrant worker for the purposes of Regulation No 1612/68 on freedom of movement for workers within the Community.

(see para. 20, operative part 1)

2. Article 7(2) of Regulation No 1612/68 on freedom of movement for workers within the Community precludes the spouse of a migrant worker carrying on an occupation in one Member State, who does not work and is resident in another Member State, from being refused a child-raising allowance on the ground that he does not have his permanent or ordinary residence in the former State. The grant of such an allowance to a worker’s spouse, since it benefits the family as a whole, whichever parent it is who claims the allowance, is capable of reducing that worker’s obligation to contribute to family expenses, and therefore constitutes for him or her a ‘social advantage’ within the meaning of Article 7(2) of Regulation No 1612/68.

Such a residence condition must be regarded as indirectly discriminatory if it is intrinsically liable to affect migrant workers or their spouses, who more often reside in another Member State, than to affect national workers, and if there is a consequent risk that it will place the former at a particular disadvantage.

In the context of national legislation pursuing family policy objectives, granting the child-raising allowance to persons who have established a real link with national society and under which a substantial contribution to the national labour market also constitutes a valid factor of integration into society, the allowance in question cannot be refused to a couple who do not live in the national territory, but one of whom works full-time in that State.

(see paras 26, 30-33, 36-38, operative part 2)
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Tax provisions – Harmonisation of laws – Turnover taxes – Common system of value added tax – Taxable amount

(Council Directive 77/388, Arts 2(1) and 6(1))

Summary

Articles 2(1) and 6(1) of Sixth Directive 77/388 on the harmonisation of the laws of the Member States relating to turnover taxes are to be interpreted as meaning that a sum paid as a deposit, in the context of a contract relating to the supply of hotel services which is subject to value added tax, is to be regarded, where the client exercises the cancellation option available to him and that sum is retained by the hotelier, as a fixed cancellation charge paid as compensation for the loss suffered as a result of client default and which has no direct connection with the supply of any service for consideration and, as such, is not subject to that tax.

The payment of a deposit by the client, on the one hand, and the obligation of the hotelier, on the other, not to contract with anyone else in such a way as to prevent it from honouring its undertaking towards that client cannot be classified as reciprocal performance, because the obligation in those circumstances arises directly from the contract for accommodation, not from the payment of the deposit. Thus when, following a reservation, the hotelier provides the agreed service, he does no more than honour the contract entered into with his client, in accordance with the principle that contracts must be performed. Accordingly, the fulfilment of that obligation cannot be classified as consideration for the payment of a deposit.

(see paras 23, 25, 36, operative part)
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Social policy – Approximation of laws – Transfers of undertakings – Safeguarding of employees’ rights – Directive 2001/23

(Council Directive 2001/23, Art. 1(1))

Summary

In order to fall within Directive 2001/23 on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the safeguarding of employees’ rights in the event of transfers of undertakings, businesses or parts of undertakings or businesses, the taking over of employees must relate to a stable economic entity whose activity is not limited to performing one specific works contract. In the case of a temporary employment business, in the absence of an identifiable organisational structure, an analysis should take account of its special characteristics rather than aim to establish whether an economic entity exists at the level of its organisational structure.

Article 1(1) of Directive 2001/23 must therefore be interpreted as applying to a situation where part of the administrative personnel and part of the temporary workers are transferred to another temporary employment business in order to carry out the same activities in that business for the same clients and – which is a matter for the referring court to establish – the assets affected by the transfer are sufficient in themselves to allow the services characterising the economic activity in question to be provided without recourse to other significant assets or to other parts of the business.

(see paras 31, 34, 38, operative part)