larimo/cjeu-paragraph-retrieval huggingface dataset:
Peter Hehenberger v Republik Österreich.
Date: 2012-05-24
30. Articles 22 to 24 of Regulation No 1257/1999 set out the general conditions for the grant of support for farming practices designed, in particular, to maintain the countryside. It follows from those provisions that agri-environmental measures are characterised by the five‑year commitment given by the farmers concerned to practise a form of agriculture which respects the environment. In return for the agri‑environmental commitments for a minimum of five years, financial support is allocated annually by the States according to the loss of revenue incurred or the resulting additional costs (Case C‑241/07 JK Otsa Talu  [2009] ECR I‑4323, paragraph 36).
33. In that connection, it should be observed that the Court was asked to interpret Article 23(2) of Regulation No 796/2004 in Case C‑536/09 Omejc  [2011] ECR I‑5367. In paragraph 27 of that judgment, the Court underlined the importance of the checks and held that preventing them from being carried out cannot but lead to serious legal consequences, such as the rejection of the aid applications concerned.
34. Such rejection is the legal consequence of the fact that it is impossible to carry out an effective check as to whether the conditions required for the grant of the support have been complied with, as required under Article 67 of Regulation No 817/2004. As regards the agri-environmental support characterised by a multi‑annual commitment, those conditions for the grant of support are not required simply for the year during which an on-the-spot check has been made, but throughout the entire commitment period in respect of which the support was granted, which means that — as laid down in Article 69 of that regulation — the on‑the‑spot checks connected with that support relate to all the commitments entered into. Accordingly, conduct on the part of the farmer which makes it impossible to carry out those checks prevents verification that those conditions have been complied with throughout the commitment period.
36. In consequence, as is clear from Article 71(2) of Regulation No 817/2004, the beneficiary is under an obligation to repay all the agri-environmental aid already paid in respect of the applications which have been rejected.
37. Furthermore, it should be made clear that, where the European Union legislature lays down the conditions governing eligibility for the grant of aid, exclusion as a result of failure to comply with those conditions is not a penalty, but merely the consequence of failure to fulfil the conditions laid down by law (see, to that effect, Case C‑171/03 Toeters and Verberk  [2004] ECR I‑10945, paragraph 47, and Case C‑45/05 Maatschap Schonewille-Prins  [2007] ECR I‑3997, paragraph 47). By the same token, the rejection of an aid application on the grounds that it is impossible to verify the eligibility conditions because of the conduct of the farmer, who has prevented an on-the-spot check from being carried out, cannot be regarded as a penalty and, accordingly, cannot be subject to the application of Article 73 of Regulation No 817/2004.
Insinööritoimisto InsTiimi Oy.
Date: 2012-06-07
28. However, the Court must examine the circumstances in which cases are referred to it by the national court in order to assess whether it has jurisdiction (see Kamberaj , paragraph 41). The Court may refuse to rule on a question referred for a preliminary ruling by a national court only where it is quite obvious that the interpretation of EU law that is sought bears no relation to the actual facts of the main action or its purpose, where the problem is hypothetical, or where the Court does not have before it the factual or legal material necessary to give a useful answer to the questions submitted to it (see Case C-450/06 Varec  [2008] I-581, paragraph 24).
35. In this respect, it should be borne in mind that those provisions must, in accordance with settled case-law in respect of derogations from fundamental freedoms, be interpreted strictly (see, inter alia, as regards the derogations provided for in Article 296 EC, Case C-284/05 Commission  v Finland  [2009] ECR I-11705, paragraph 46 and the case-law cited). Although Article 296(1)(b) EC refers to measures which a Member State may consider necessary for the protection of the essential interests of its security, that article cannot, however, be read in such a way as to confer on Member States a power to depart from the provisions of the EC Treaty based on no more than reliance on those interests ( Commission  v Finland , paragraph 47).
39. Consequently, it is necessary, first, to bear in mind that a contracting authority cannot invoke Article 296(1)(b) EC to justify a derogating measure when purchasing material which is certainly for civilian use and possibly for military use (see, to that effect, Case C-337/05 Commission  v Italy  [2008] ECR I-2173, paragraphs 48 and 49).
45. It should be added that if, in the light of the foregoing considerations, the referring court should find that the product at issue in the main proceedings comes within the material scope of Article 296(1)(b) EC, to which Article 10 of Directive 2004/18 refers, it would be for that court to determine whether the Member State which seeks to take advantage of that Treaty provision can show that it is necessary to have recourse to the derogation provided for in that provision in order to protect its essential security interests (see, to that effect, inter alia, Commission  v Finland , paragraph 49) and whether the need to protect those essential interests could not have been addressed within a competitive tendering procedure such as that specified by Directive 2004/18 (see, to that effect, Commission  v Italy , paragraph 53).
Anton Vinkov v Nachalnik Administrativno-nakazatelna deynost.
Date: 2012-06-07
44. As the Court of Justice has consistently held, it has no jurisdiction to answer a question referred for a preliminary ruling where the interpretation of rules of EU law which is sought by the national court has no relation to the actual facts of the main action or to its purpose, and those rules are incapable of applying in the main proceedings (see, in particular, Case C-567/07 Woningstichting Sint Servatius  [2009] ECR I-9021, paragraph 43, and Case C-245/09 Omalet  [2010] ECR I-13771, paragraph 11).
58. Consequently, in a reference for a preliminary ruling under Article 267 TFEU, where national legislation falls within the scope of EU law, the Court must provide all the criteria of interpretation needed in order for the national court to determine whether that legislation is compatible with the fundamental rights which derive in particular from the Charter (see, to that effect, Case C-299/95 Kremzow [1997] ECR I-2629, paragraph 15, and Case C-256/11 Dereci and Others  [2011] ECR I-11315, paragraph 72).
M.J. Bakker v Minister van Financiën.
Date: 2012-06-07
28. It should be noted, in this regard, that it follows from the case-law of the Court that the mere fact that a worker’s activities are performed outside the territory of the European Union is not sufficient to exclude the application of the European Union rules on the free movement of workers, as long as the employment relationship retains a sufficiently close link with the territory of the European Union. In a case such as that here at issue in the main proceedings, a link of that kind can be found in the fact, confirmed by the Hoge Raad, that Mr Bakker works on board a vessel registered in the Netherlands for an undertaking established in that Member State (see to that effect, Lopes da Veiga , paragraph 17, and Aldewereld , paragraph 14).
32. It must be noted in this regard that the sole purpose of Article 13(2)(c) of Regulation No 1408/71 is to determine the national legislation applicable to persons employed on board a vessel flying the flag of a Member State. As such, the provision is not intended to lay down the conditions creating the right or the obligation to become affiliated to a social security scheme or to a particular branch under such a scheme. It is for the legislation of each Member State to lay down those conditions (see Case C-347/10 Salemink [2012] ECR, paragraph 38).
33. However, although Member States retain the power to organise the conditions of affiliation to their social security schemes, they must none the less, when exercising that power, comply with European Union law. In particular, those conditions may not have the effect of excluding from the scope of the legislation at issue persons to whom that legislation applies pursuant to Regulation No 1408/71 (see, to that effect, Case C-2/89 Kits van Heijningen [1990] ECR I-1755, paragraph 20, and Salemink , paragraphs 39 and 40).
34. Article 13(2)(c) of Regulation No 1408/71 expressly provides that a person employed on board a vessel flying the flag of a Member State is to be subject to the legislation of that State. That provision would not be complied with if the residence condition laid down by the legislation of the Member State concerned for affiliation to the insurance scheme for which it provides could be relied on against the persons referred to in Article 13(2)(c) (see, to that effect, Kits van Heijningen , paragraph 21, and Salemink , paragraph 41).
35. Consequently, the effect of Article 13(2)(c) of Regulation No 1408/71 is that a provision of the applicable national legislation pursuant to which cover by the social security scheme established by that legislation is conditional on residence in the Member State concerned may not be relied on against the persons referred to in Article 13(2)(c) of that regulation (see, to that effect, Kits van Heijningen , paragraph 22).
Tyrolean Airways Tiroler Luftfahrt Gesellschaft mbH v Betriebsrat Bord der Tyrolean Airways Tiroler Luftfahrt Gesellschaft mbH.
Date: 2012-06-07
21. By its first question, the referring court seeks, in essence, to ascertain whether European Union law, in particular Article 2 and Article 6(1) of Directive 2000/78, must be interpreted as precluding a provision of a collective agreement which takes into account, for the purposes of grading in the employment categories provided for in that agreement and, therefore, determination of the level of pay, only the professional experience acquired as a cabin crew member of a specific airline, while excluding substantively identical experience acquired in the service of another airline belonging to the same group of companies.
22. In accordance with the case-law, where they adopt measures which fall within the scope of Directive 2000/78, which gives specific expression, in the dom ain of employment and occupation, to the principle of non-discrimination on grounds of age, the social partners must respect that directive (Case C-447/09 Prigge and Others [2011] ECR I-8003, paragraph 48 and case-law cited).
23. In those circumstances, the first question falls to be examined solely in the light of Directive 2000/78.
29. However, while a provision such as that the tenor of which is set out in paragraph 21 of this judgment is likely to entail a difference in treatment according to the date of recruitment by the employer concerned, such a difference is not, directly or indirectly, based on age or on an event linked to age. It is the experience which may have been acquired by a cabin crew member with another airline in the same group of companies which is not taken into account for grading, irrespective of the age of that cabin crew member at the time of his or her recruitment. That provision is therefore based on a criterion which is neither inextricably (see, a contrario , Case C-499/08 Ingeniørforeningen i Danmark [2010] ECR I-9343, paragraph 23) nor indirectly linked to the age of employees, even if it is conceivable that a consequence of the application of the criterion at issue may, in some individual cases, be that the time of advancement of the cabin crew members concerned from employment category A to employment category B is at a later age than the time of advancement of staff members who have acquired equivalent experience with Tyrolean Airways.
30. In those circumstances, it cannot be considered that the clause at issue in the Tyrolean Airways collective agreement establishes a difference of treatment on grounds of age, in terms of the combined provisions of Article 1 and Article 2(2)(b) of Directive 2000/78.
Auto 24 SARL v Jaguar Land Rover France SAS.
Date: 2012-06-14
22. As a preliminary point, it is important to note that it follows from the Court’s case-law (see, inter alia, Case 10/86, VAG France  [1986] ECR 4071, paragraph 12; Case C-230/96 Cabour  [1998] ECR I-2055, paragraphs 47, 48 and 51; and Case C-260/07 Pedro IV Servicios  [2009] ECR I-2437, paragraph 68) that non-compliance with a condition necessary for the exemption cannot, in itself, give rise to damages pursuant to Article 101 TFEU or oblige a supplier to accept an applicant distributor into a distribution system.
BNP Paribas and Banca Nazionale del Lavoro SpA (BNL) v European Commission.
Date: 2012-06-21
100. According to the Court’s case-law, however, State aid, as defined in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, is a legal concept which must be interpreted on the basis of objective factors. For that reason, the European Union judicature must in principle and having regard both to the specific features of the case before it and to the technical or complex nature of the Commission’s assessments, carry out a comprehensive review as to whether a measure falls within the scope of Article 107(1) TFEU (see, inter alia, Case C-83/98 P France  v Ladbroke Racing and Commission  [2000] ECR I-3271, paragraph 25, and Case C-487/06 P British Aggregates  v Commission  [2008] ECR I-10515, paragraph 111).
101. Moreover, according to equally well-established case-law, the concept of State aid does not refer to State measures which differentiate between undertakings and which are, therefore, prima facie selective where that differentiation arises from the nature or the general scheme of the system of which they form part (see to that effect, inter alia, Adria-Wien Pipeline and Wietersdorfer & Peggauer Zementwerke , paragraph 42; Portugal v Commission , paragraph 52; British Aggregates  v Commission , paragraph 83; and Joined Cases C-106/09 P and C-107/09 P Commission and Spain  v Government of Gibraltar and United Kingdom  [2011] ECR I-11113, paragraph 145).
102. It is apparent from those considerations that, in carrying out the necessary comprehensive review of the characterisation of the tax scheme at issue as State aid, the General Court had to examine whether the differentiation between undertakings arising from that scheme was due to the nature or general scheme of the tax system of which it formed part.
103. Admittedly, the Court of Justice has held that judicial review is limited with regard to whether a measure comes within the scope of Article 107(1) TFEU, in a case where the appraisals by the Commission are technical or complex in nature (see, inter alia, France  v Ladbroke Racing and Commission , paragraph 25, and British Aggregates  v Commission , paragraph 114). However, the General Court did not find that this was the case here.
104. Thus, by merely observing that the contested decision did not concern the transferring entities without considering the tax realignment scheme in its entirety, and without having assessed the appellants’ and the Commission’s arguments, the General Court erred in law by failing to carry out a comprehensive review as to whether the tax scheme at issue came within the scope of Article 107(1) TFEU (see, to that effect, British Aggregates  v Commission , paragraph 115).
121. It is for the Member State which has introduced such a differentiation between undertakings in relation to charges to show that it is actually justified by the nature and general scheme of the system in question (Case C-159/01 Netherlands  v Commission  [2004] ECR I-4461, paragraph 43; C-279/08 P Commission  v Netherlands  [2011] ECR I-7671, paragraph 77; and Commission and Spain  v Government of Gibraltar and United Kingdom , paragraph 146).
Wolf Naturprodukte GmbH v SEWAR spol. s r.o.
Date: 2012-06-21
25. The rules on jurisdiction and the rules on the recognition and enforcement of judgments in Regulation No 44/2001 do not constitute distinct and autonomous systems but are closely linked. The Court has also previously held that the simplified mechanism of recognition and enforcement set out in Article 33(1) of that regulation, to the effect that a judgment given in a Member State is to be recognised in the other Member States without any special procedure being required, which leads in principle, pursuant to Article 35(3) of that regulation, to the lack of review of the jurisdiction of courts of the Member State of origin, rests on mutual trust between the Member States and, in particular, by that placed in the court of the State of origin by the court of the State addressed, taking account in particular of the rules of direct jurisdiction set out in Chapter II of that regulation (Opinion 1/03 [2006] ECR I-1145, paragraph 163).
26. As the Court stressed with reference to the Brussels Convention, whose interpretation by the Court also holds good in principle for Regulation No 44/2001 (see, to that effect, Case C-406/09 Realchemie Nederland  [2011] ECR I-9773, paragraph 38), it is because of the guarantees given to the defendant in the original proceedings that that Convention, in Title III, is very liberal with regard to recognition (Case 125/79 Denilauler  [1980] ECR 1553, paragraph 3). The report on that Convention submitted by Mr Jenard (OJ 1979 C 59, p. 1, at p. 46) stated that ‘[t]he very strict rules of jurisdiction laid down in Title II, and the safeguards granted in Article 20 to defendants who do not enter an appearance make it possible to dispense with any review, by the court in which recognition or enforcement is sought, of the jurisdiction of the court in which the original judgment was given’ (Opinion 1/03, paragraph 163).
31. Similarly, under Article 26(2) of Regulation No 44/2001, the court hearing the case must stay the proceedings so long as it is not shown that the defendant who fails to appear has been able to receive the document instituting the proceedings or an equivalent document in sufficient time to enable him to arrange for his defence, or that all necessary steps have been taken to this end (see Case C-283/05 ASML  [2006] ECR I-2041, paragraph 30).
Leopold Sommer v Landesgeschäftsstelle des Arbeitsmarktservice Wien.
Date: 2012-06-21
39. It should be noted that, according to Recitals 6 and 7 in the preamble to Directive 2004/114, that directive is intended to promote the mobility of students who are third-country nationals to the European Union for the purpose of education. That mobility is intended ‘to promote Europe … as a world centre of excellence for studies and vocational training’.
Asociación Nacional de Grandes Empresas de Distribución (ANGED) v Federación de Asociaciones Sindicales (FASGA) and Others.
Date: 2012-06-21
16. In that regard, it should be noted first of all that, according to settled case-law, the entitlement of every worker to paid annual leave must be regarded as a particularly important principle of European Union social law from which there can be no derogations and whose implementation by the competent national authorities must be confined within the limits expressly laid down by Council Directive 93/104/EC of 23 November 1993 concerning certain aspects of the organisation of working time (OJ 1993 L 307, p. 18) itself, a directive now codified by Directive 2003/88 (Case C-214/10 KHS  [2011] ECR I-11757, paragraph 23 and the case-law cited).
17. Second, it should be recalled that the right to paid annual leave is, as a principle of European Union social law, not only particularly important, but is also expressly laid down in Article 31(2) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which Article 6(1) TEU recognises as having the same legal value as the Treaties ( KHS , paragraph 37, and Case C-337/10 Neidel [2012] ECR, paragraph 40).
18. Third, the right to paid annual leave cannot be interpreted restrictively (see Case C-486/08 Zentralbetriebsrat der Landeskrankenhäuser Tirols [2010] ECR I-3527, paragraph 29).
19. It is, moreover, common ground that the purpose of entitlement to paid annual leave is to enable the worker to rest and to enjoy a period of relaxation and leisure. The purpose of entitlement to sick leave is different. It is given to the worker so that he can recover from an illness that has caused him to be unfit for work (see Case C-277/08 Vicente Pereda  [2009] ECR I-8405, paragraph 21).
20. Accordingly, the Court has already held that it follows in particular from the purpose of entitlement to paid annual leave that a worker who is on sick leave during a period of previously scheduled annual leave has the right, at his request and in order that he may actually use his annual leave, to take that leave during a period which does not coincide with the period of sick leave (see Vicente Pereda , paragraph 22).
IFAW Internationaler Tierschutz-Fonds gGmbH v European Commission.
Date: 2012-06-21
73. Ensuring such judicial protection for the person who has made the request and to whom the institution has refused to grant access to one or more documents originating from a Member State following an objection by that State means that the European Union judicature must assess the lawfulness of the decision to refuse access in the specific case (see, in that respect, Case C-266/05 P Sison  v Council  [2007] ECR I-1233, paragraphs 33 to 39), in the light of all relevant factors, among the most important of which are the documents whose disclosure has been refused. To comply with the prohibition of disclosure of the documents in question without the prior agreement of the Member State concerned, the General Court must consult the documents in camera , so that the parties themselves do not have access to them, as provided for by the third indent of Article 67(3) of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court.
Syllogos Ellinon Poleodomon kai Khorotakton v Ipourgos Perivallontos, Khorotaxias & Dimosion Ergon and Others.
Date: 2012-06-21
22. The first sentence of Article 6(3) of the Habitats Directive makes the requirement of an appropriate assessment of the implications of a plan or project conditional on there being a probability or a risk that that plan or project will have a significant effect on the site concerned (Case C-127/02 Waddenvereniging and Vogelbeschermingsvereniging [2004] ECR I-7405, paragraph 43). That condition is fulfilled if it cannot be excluded, on the basis of objective information, that that plan or project will have a significant effect on the site concerned (see, to that effect, Case C-418/04 Commission  v Ireland [2007] ECR I-10947, paragraph 227).
Republic of Poland v European Commission.
Date: 2012-06-26
26. Second, in paragraph 55 of that order, the General Court, with reference to Case 152/85 Misset  v Council  [1987] ECR 223, paragraph 11, reiterated that the Community rules concerning procedural time-limits are to be strictly applied.
36. The European Union is a union based on the rule of law, its institutions being subject to review of the conformity of their acts, inter alia, with the Treaty and the general principles of law (see Joined Cases C-402/05 P and C-415/05 P Kadi and Al Barakaat International Foundation  v Council and Commission  [2008] ECR I-6351, paragraph 281, and Case C-550/09 E and F  [2010] ECR I-6213, paragraph 44).