O v Bio Philippe Auguste SARL.
Date: 2015-10-01
18. In any event, according to consistent case-law of the Court, where questions submitted by national courts concern the interpretation of a provision of EU law, the Court is bound, in principle, to give a ruling unless it is obvious that the request for a preliminary ruling is in reality designed to induce the Court to give a ruling by means of a fictitious dispute, or to deliver advisory opinions on general or hypothetical questions, or that the interpretation of EU law requested bears no relation to the actual facts of the main action or its purpose, or that the Court does not have before it the factual or legal material necessary to give a useful answer to the questions submitted to it (judgment in DR and TV2 Danmark , C‑510/10, EU:C:2012:244, paragraph 22 and the case-law cited therein).
19. That being the case, it is not inconceivable that the interpretation of EU law sought by the referring court does actually respond to an objective need inherent in the outcome of a case pending before it. In fact, it is common ground that the employment contract between the parties to the main proceedings has actually been performed and that its application raises a question of interpretation of EU law (see, to that effect, judgment in Mangold , C‑144/04, EU:C:2005:709, paragraph 38).
22. As regards the question, raised by the European Commission, of whether the applicant in the main proceedings may be classified as a ‘worker’, it must be recalled that according to consistent case-law of the Court, that concept has a specific independent meaning and must not be interpreted narrowly. Thus, any person who pursues activities that are real and genuine, to the exclusion of activities on such a small scale as to be regarded as purely marginal and ancillary, must be regarded as a ‘worker’. The essential feature of an employment relationship is, according to that case-law, that for a certain period of time a person performs services for and under the direction of another person in return for which he receives remuneration (judgments in Lawrie-Blum , 66/85, EU:C:1986:284, paragraphs 16 and 17; Collins , C‑138/02, EU:C:2004:172, paragraph 26; Trojani , C‑456/02, EU:C:2004:488, paragraph 15; and Neidel , C‑337/10, EU:C:2012:263, paragraph 23).
24. Although the fact that a person works for only a very limited number of hours in the context of an employment relationship may be an indication that the activities performed are marginal and ancillary, the fact remains that, independently of the limited amount of the remuneration for and the number of hours of the activity in question, the possibility cannot be ruled out that, following an overall assessment of the employment relationship in question, that activity may be considered by the national authorities to be real and genuine, thereby allowing its holder to be granted the status of ‘worker’ within the meaning of EU law (see, to that effect, judgment in Genc , C‑14/09, EU:C:2010:57, paragraph 26 and the case-law cited therein).
25. The overall assessment of the employment relationship of the applicant in the main proceedings makes it necessary to take into account factors relating not only to the number of working hours and the level of remuneration but also to any rights to paid leave, to the continued payment of wages in the event of sickness, and to a contract of employment which is subject to the relevant collective agreement, to the payment of contributions and, if this applies, to the nature of those contributions (see, to that effect, judgment in Genc , C‑14/09, EU:C:2010:57, paragraph 27).
26. The analysis of the consequences which all those factors which characterise an employment relationship may have for the finding as to whether the employment of the applicant in the main proceedings is real and genuine and, therefore, for his status as a worker is a matter coming within the jurisdiction of the national court. The national court alone has direct knowledge of the facts giving rise to the dispute and it is, consequently, best placed to make the necessary determinations (judgment in Genc , C‑14/09, EU:C:2010:57, paragraph 32).
30. Member States enjoy a broad discretion in their choice, not only to pursue a particular aim in the field of social and employment policy, but also in the definition of measures capable of achieving it (judgment in Schmitzer , C‑530/13, EU:C:2014:2359, paragraph 38 and the case-law cited therein).
31. In particular, the requirement as to the comparable nature of the situations for the purposes of determining whether there is an infringement of the principle of equal treatment must be assessed in the light of all the factors characterising those situations (see, inter alia, the judgment in Arcelor Atlantique and Lorraine and Others , C‑127/07, EU:C:2008:728, paragraph 25).
32. It must also be stated that, on the one hand, it is required not that the situations be identical, but only that they be comparable and, on the other hand, the assessment of that comparability must be carried out not in a global and abstract manner, but in a specific and concrete manner in the light of the benefit concerned (judgment in Hay , C‑267/12, EU:C:2013:823, paragraph 33 and the case-law cited therein).
33. Therefore, the Court must examine whether the situation of a student such as the applicant in the main proceedings, employed under a fixed-term employment contract during his university holidays, is objectively comparable, having regard to the aim pursued by Article L. 1243-8 of the Code du Travail, to that of workers who are entitled to the end-of-contract payment under that provision.