Case C-5/01: Action brought on 8 January 2001 by the Kingdom of Belgium against the Commission of the European Communities
Date: 2001-02-24
Institutions: Court of Justice
Subjects: Belgium, European Commission, State aid, action for annulment (EU), iron and steel industry, reduction of working time

C 61/8

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

24.2.2001

8. Where the parties have agreed that the employee will
take premature retirement on the terms offered by the
employer, what criteria should the national court apply
in determining whether the transfer of the undertaking is
the reason for that agreement in accordance with the
principle enunciated by the Court
in Foreningen af
Arbeidsledre-v-Daddy’s Dance Hall, Case 324/86 (2)?

9.

If the effect of Article 3 of the Directive is to preclude the
transferee from offering transferred employees the option
of taking early retirement on the basis of early retirement
benefits that are less beneficial than those to which they
are entitled under the effect of the Directive, what are the
consequences for employees who accept early retirement
on the basis offered to them by the employer?

(1) Council Directive 77/187/EEC of 14 February 1977 on the
approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the
transfers
safeguarding of employees’ rights in the event of
of undertakings, businesses or parts of businesses (OJ L 61,
05.03.1977, p. 26).

(2) ECR 1988 p. 739.

Action brought on 8 January 2001 by the Kingdom
of Belgium against the Commission of the European
Communities

(Case C-5/01)

(2001/C 61/14)

An action against the Commission of the European Communi-
ties was brought before the Court of Justice of the European
Communities on 8 January 2001 by the Kingdom of Belgium,
represented by A. Snoecx, acting as Agent, assisted by J.M. De
Backer, G. Vandersanden and L. Levi, lawyers, with an address
for service in Luxembourg.

The Kingdom of Belgium claims that the Court should:

— annul the Commission’s decision of 15 November 2000
(No C 76/1999) entitled ‘State aid granted by Belgium in
favour of the steel undertaking Cockerill Sambre S.A.’;

— order the Commission to pay the costs.

Pleas in law and main arguments

— Distortion of the notion of aid as referred to in Article
4(c) CS and in the steel aids code — manifest error of
assessment: Cockerill Sambre has not derived any benefit
from the intervention of the Federal and Walloon auth-
orities in the implementation of the plan for the reduction
of working time, since not only was the company under
no legal obligation to pay remuneration for the 34 hours
worked at the level payable for 37 hours but, in addition,
the collective working agreement of 17 April 1998
contained no commitment on the part of the company
to maintain the. remuneration of those workers affected
by the reduction in working time.

the transitional

Consequently,
increment which the
Region of Wallonia has undertaken to pay does not
constitute operating costs of the company. That tran-
sitional increment is not intended to constitute remuner-
ation for work done by the workers affected by the
reduction in working time but to compensate for the
financial efforts which they have themselves proposed to
make with a view to the creation of 150 jobs for young
workers.

The reduction in social contributions agreed to by the
Federal authorities confers no economic advantage on
Cockerill Sambre. The overall number of hours worked
within the company has not been altered in response to
the plan for the reduction in working time accompanied
by the compensatory engagement of 150 young workers.
The same number of hours are worked for the company,
at the same cost to the company.

— Failure to take account of the notion of a beneficiary: the
interventions by the public authorities constitute aid in
favour of the Cockerill Sambre workers affected by the
scaling-down, and not aid in favour of Cockerill Sambre.
The fact that aid is granted to workers in their capacity as
employees of a specific undertaking does not, as such,
preclude it from being categorised as aid to individuals.

— Non-compliance with the procedure laid down by the
steel aids code - Lack of competence: the fact that the
three-month time-limit prescribed by Article 6(5) has not
been complied with means that the Commission is not
competent to decide whether a measure constitutes aid
incompatible with the steel aids code.

— Failure to fulfil the obligation to provide a statement of

reasons.

— (In the alternative) Infringement of Article 95 CS: the
intervention measures are not intended artificially to
maintain jobs in an undertaking which has no commercial
or financial viability; instead, they are designed to attain a
social objective which is, moreover, championed by the
European Community, namely progress towards the
achievement of full employment by means of the redistri-
bution of work. In those circumstances, the Commission
has committed a manifest and obvious error of assess-
ment by refusing, on an exceptional basis, to authorise
the measures in issue under Article 95 CS.