CELEX: C2000/135/03
Language: en
Date: 2000-05-13 00:00:00
Title: Order of the Court of Justice (First Chamber) of 25 February 2000 in Case C-418/98 P: Elsa De Persio v Commission of the European Communities and Council of the European Union (Officials — Redeployment — Request to be transferred from the Language Service to Category A — "Decompartmentalisation" — Appeal manifestly inadmissible and manifestly unfounded)

13.5.2000              EN                      Official Journal of the European Communities                                       C 135/3
           ORDER OF THE COURT OF JUSTICE                                  Action brought on 6 January 2000 by the Commission of
                                                                          the European Communities against the Federal Republic
                                                                                                     of Germany
                         (First Chamber)
                                                                                                    (Case C-5/00)
                      of 25 February 2000
                                                                                                  (2000/C 135/04)
in Case C-418/98 P: Elsa De Persio v Commission of the
European Communities and Council of the European
                             Union (1)                                    An action against the Federal Republic of Germany was
                                                                          brought before the Court of Justice of the European Communi-
                                                                          ties on 6 January 2000 by the Commission of the European
(Officials — Redeployment — Request to be transferred                     Communities, represented by Wolfgang Bogensberger, of its
from the Language Service to Category A — ‘Decompart-                     Legal Service, with an address for service in Luxembourg at
mentalisation’ — Appeal manifestly inadmissible and mani-                 office of Carlos Gómez de la Cruz, also a Member of its Legal
                        festly unfounded)                                 Service, Wagner Centre, Kirchberg.
                         (2000/C 135/03)                                  The Commission claims that the Court should:
                                                                          (a) Declare the Federal Republic of Germany in breach of its
                   (Language of the case: Italian)                             obligations under Articles 10 and 249 EC and under
                                                                               Articles 9(1)(a) and 10(3)(a) of Council Directive
                                                                               89/391/EEC of 12 June 1989 on the introduction of
In Case C-418/98 P: Elsa De Persio, an official of the                         measures to encourage improvements in the safety and
Commission of the European Communities, residing in Brus-                      health of workers at work (OJ 1989 L 183, p. 1) inasmuch
sels (Belgium), represented by F. Giampietro, of the Rome Bar,                 as, by Article 6 of the Gesetz zur Umsetzung der EG
with an address for service in Luxembourg at the Chambers of                   Rahmenrichtlinie Arbeitsschutz und weiterer Arbeits-
G. Bounéou, 4 Rue de l’Avenir — appeal against the judgment                    schutzrichtlinien (Law for the implementation of the EC
of the Court of First Instance of the European Communities                     framework directive on occupational health and safety and
(Second Chamber) of 15 September 1998 in Case T-23/96 De                       other directives on occupational health and safety) of
Persio v Commission [1998] ECR-SC I-A-483 and II-1413,                         7 August 1996 (BGB 1.1., p. 1246; ‘the Law on occu-
seeking annulment of that judgment, the other parties to the                   pational health and safety’), it absolved employers
proceedings being Commission of the European Communities                       employing ten persons or less from the requirement to
(Agent: G. Valsesia, assisted by A. Dal Ferro) and Council of                  keep documents containing the results of risk assessements;
the European Union (Agents: T. Gallas and D. Canga Fano) —
the Court of Justice (First Chamber), composed of: L. Sevón,
President of the Chamber, P. Jann (Rapporteur) and M. Wathe-              (b) Order the Federal Republic of Germany to pay the costs.
let, Judges; J. Mischo, Advocate General; R. Grass, Registrar,
has made an order on 25 February 2000, the operative part of
which is as follows:
                                                                          Pleas in law and main arguments
1. The appeal is dismissed;
                                                                          The Commission submits that the wording of Article 9(2) of
2. Elsa Del Persio shall bear her own costs and those incurred by         Directive 89/391/EEC is clear and ambiguous, leaving no
     the Commission for the purposes of the appeal;                       doubt as to the existence of a duty to keep documents, and
                                                                          that an interpretation based on the sense and purpose of the
                                                                          directive leads to the same result. The Commission cannot
3. The Council shall bear its own costs.                                  share the view of the German Government that, in the case of
                                                                          small undertakings with a low level of risk, the wording ‘...in
                                                                          the light of the nature of the activities and size of the
                                                                          undertakings...’ permits undertakings to refrain altogether
(1) OJ C 48 of 20.2.1999.                                                 from keeping risk assessment documents.