CELEX: C2001/061/14
Language: en
Date: 2001-02-24 00:00:00
Title: Case C-5/01: Action brought on 8 January 2001 by the Kingdom of Belgium against the Commission of the European Communities

C 61/8                  EN                     Official Journal of the European Communities                                       24.2.2001
8.    Where the parties have agreed that the employee will                Pleas in law and main arguments
      take premature retirement on the terms offered by the
      employer, what criteria should the national court apply             —     Distortion of the notion of aid as referred to in Article
      in determining whether the transfer of the undertaking is                 4(c) CS and in the steel aids code — manifest error of
      the reason for that agreement in accordance with the                      assessment: Cockerill Sambre has not derived any benefit
      principle enunciated by the Court in Foreningen af                        from the intervention of the Federal and Walloon auth-
      Arbeidsledre-v-Daddy’s Dance Hall, Case 324/86 (2)?                       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
9.    If the effect of Article 3 of the Directive is to preclude the            worked at the level payable for 37 hours but, in addition,
      transferee from offering transferred employees the option                 the collective working agreement of 17 April 1998
      of taking early retirement on the basis of early retirement               contained no commitment on the part of the company
      benefits that are less beneficial than those to which they                to maintain the. remuneration of those workers affected
      are entitled under the effect of the Directive, what are the              by the reduction in working time.
      consequences for employees who accept early retirement
      on the basis offered to them by the employer?                             Consequently, the transitional 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-
(1) Council Directive 77/187/EEC of 14 February 1977 on the                     ation for work done by the workers affected by the
    approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the              reduction in working time but to compensate for the
    safeguarding of employees’ rights in the event of transfers                 financial efforts which they have themselves proposed to
    of undertakings, businesses or parts of businesses (OJ L 61,                make with a view to the creation of 150 jobs for young
    05.03.1977, p. 26).                                                         workers.
(2) ECR 1988 p. 739.
                                                                                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
Action brought on 8 January 2001 by the Kingdom
                                                                                scaling-down, and not aid in favour of Cockerill Sambre.
of Belgium against the Commission of the European
                                                                                The fact that aid is granted to workers in their capacity as
                           Communities
                                                                                employees of a specific undertaking does not, as such,
                                                                                preclude it from being categorised as aid to individuals.
                           (Case C-5/01)                                  —     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
                          (2001/C 61/14)                                        been complied with means that the Commission is not
                                                                                competent to decide whether a measure constitutes aid
                                                                                incompatible with the steel aids code.
An action against the Commission of the European Communi-
ties was brought before the Court of Justice of the European              —     Failure to fulfil the obligation to provide a statement of
Communities on 8 January 2001 by the Kingdom of Belgium,                        reasons.
represented by A. Snoecx, acting as Agent, assisted by J.M. De
Backer, G. Vandersanden and L. Levi, lawyers, with an address             —     (In the alternative) Infringement of Article 95 CS: the
for service in Luxembourg.                                                      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
The Kingdom of Belgium claims that the Court should:                            European Community, namely progress towards the
                                                                                achievement of full employment by means of the redistri-
                                                                                bution of work. In those circumstances, the Commission
—     annul the Commission’s decision of 15 November 2000                       has committed a manifest and obvious error of assess-
      (No C 76/1999) entitled ‘State aid granted by Belgium in                  ment by refusing, on an exceptional basis, to authorise
      favour of the steel undertaking Cockerill Sambre S.A.’;                   the measures in issue under Article 95 CS.
—     order the Commission to pay the costs.