XI v Caisse pour l'avenir des enfants.
Date: 2021-02-25
According to settled case-law, in the procedure laid down by Article 267 TFEU providing for cooperation between national courts and the Court of Justice, it is for the latter to provide the referring court with an answer which will be of use to it and enable it to determine the case before it (judgment of 21 October 2020, Eco TLC, C‑556/19, EU:C:2020:844, paragraph 20 and the case-law cited). In the present case, it is for the Court to determine at the outset whether the dispute in the main proceedings is governed by Directive 96/34 or by Directive 2010/18, which repeals and replaces Directive 96/34, and, if necessary, to reformulate the question referred.
In that regard, it should be borne in mind that a new rule of law applies from the entry into force of the act introducing it, and, while it does not apply to legal situations that have arisen and become definitive under the old law, it does apply to their future effects, and to new legal situations. It is otherwise, subject to the principle of the non-retroactivity of legal acts, only if the new rule is accompanied by special provisions which specifically lay down its conditions of temporal application. In particular, procedural rules are generally taken to apply from the date on which they enter into force, as opposed to substantive rules, which are usually interpreted as applying to situations existing before their entry into force only in so far as it follows clearly from their terms, their objectives or their general scheme that such an effect must be given to them (judgment of 26 March 2015, Commission v Moravia Gas Storage, C‑596/13 P, EU:C:2015:203, paragraphs 32 and 33 and the case-law cited).
As a preliminary point, it should be borne in mind that it is apparent from the Court’s settled case-law that, in interpreting a provision of EU law, it is necessary to consider not only its wording, but also the context in which it occurs and the objectives pursued by the rules of which it is part (judgments of 16 July 2015, Maïstrellis, C‑222/14, EU:C:2015:473, paragraph 30, and of 3 October 2019, Wasserleitungsverband Nördliches Burgenland and Others, C‑197/18, EU:C:2019:824, paragraph 48 and the case-law cited).
As regards, in the first place, the question of whether those clauses of the revised Framework Agreement preclude national legislation which makes the grant of a right to parental leave subject to the condition that the parent is employed without interruption for a period of at least 12 months immediately prior to the start of that parental leave, it must be observed that it is apparent from the wording of clause 3.1(b) of the revised Framework Agreement that the Member States may make the grant of parental leave subject to the condition of a prior period of work that may not exceed one year. Given the use of the words ‘period of work’ in the first part of that provision and the fact that that provision provides, in the second part, that the sum of successive fixed-term contracts with the same employer is to be taken into account for the purpose of calculating that period, the Member States may require that the period in question be continuous. In addition, since an application for parental leave seeks to secure, on the part of the applicant, a suspension of his or her employment relationship (see, to that effect, judgment of 19 September 2013, Hliddal and Bornand, C‑216/12 and C‑217/12, EU:C:2013:568, paragraph 53), the Member States may require that the prior period of work immediately precedes the start of the parental leave. Accordingly, clauses 1.1, 1.2, 2.1 and 3.1(b) of the revised Framework Agreement do not preclude national legislation which makes the grant of a right to parental leave subject to the condition that the parent concerned is employed without interruption for a period of at least 12 months immediately preceding the start of that parental leave.
Having regard to that context and those objectives, the individual right of each working parent to parental leave on the grounds of the birth or adoption of a child, enshrined in clause 2.1 of the revised Framework Agreement, must be interpreted as articulating a particularly important EU social right which, moreover, is laid down in Article 33(2) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. It follows that that right cannot be interpreted restrictively (see, to that effect, judgment of 27 February 2014, Lyreco Belgium, C‑588/12, EU:C:2014:99, paragraph 36 and the case-law cited).
Thus, it has been held that, notwithstanding the fact that birth is a condition giving rise to a right to parental leave, that right is not linked to the date on which the child was born, with the result that it is not necessary for that birth to have occurred after the date of entry into force of Directive 96/34 in a Member State in order for the parents of that child to be able to avail themselves of a right to parental leave under that directive (see, to that effect, judgments of 14 April 2005, Commission v Luxembourg, C‑519/03, EU:C:2005:234, paragraph 47, and of 16 September 2010, Chatzi, C‑149/10, EU:C:2010:534, paragraph 50).