European Commission v Kingdom of the Netherlands.
Date: 2010-04-29
45. In that regard, the Court examined in Sahin  the scope of the standstill rule laid down in Article 13 of Decision No 1/80, applicable to free movement of workers. It held that that provision is not intended to protect Turkish nationals already integrated into a Member State’s labour force, but is intended to apply precisely to Turkish nationals who do not yet qualify for the rights in relation to employment and, accordingly, residence under Article 6(1) of that decision ( Sahin , paragraph 51).
47. With regard to Article 41(1), the Court held, in accordance with the judgments in Tum and Dari  and Soysal and Savatli , that that provision prohibits the introduction, as from the date of entry into force of the legal act of which that provision forms part in the host Member State, of any new restrictions on the exercise of freedom of establishment or freedom to provide services, including those relating to the substantive and/or procedural conditions governing the first admission to the territory of that Member State of Turkish nationals intending to make use of those economic freedoms ( Sahin , paragraph 64).
48. The Court ruled that, as the standstill clause in Article 13 of Decision No 1/80 is of the same kind as that contained in Article 41(1) of the Additional Protocol, and as the objective pursued by those two clauses is identical, the interpretation of Article 41(1) must be equally valid as regards the standstill obligation which is the basis of Article 13 in relation to freedom of movement for workers ( Sahin , paragraph 65).
49. It follows that Article 13 of Decision No 1/80 precludes the introduction into Netherlands legislation, as from the date on which Decision No 1/80 entered into force in the Netherlands, of any new restrictions on the exercise of the free movement of workers, including those relating to the substantive and/or procedural conditions governing the first admission to the territory of that Member State of Turkish nationals intending to exercise that freedom.
54. It follows from the judgment in Sahin , in particular from paragraphs 72 and 74, that the application for a residence permit or for the extension of the validity of such a document presented by a Turkish national and the application for the issue of a residence permit presented in another Member State by a citizen of the Union are similar.
55. The Court held that legislation, such as the Netherlands legislation, must not amount to creating, with regard to Turkish nationals, a restriction within the meaning of Article 13 of Decision No 1/80. It stated that, read in conjunction with Article 59 of the Additional Protocol, Article 13 implies that, although a Turkish national to whom those provisions apply must certainly not be placed in a position mo re advantageous than that of citizens of the Union, he cannot, on the other hand, be subjected to new obligations which are disproportionate as compared with those established for those citizens ( Sahin , paragraph 71).
57. The Court concluded that legislation such as that at issue in the main proceedings constituted a restriction prohibited by Article 13 of Decision No 1/80 to the extent to which, for the purposes of examination of an application for the grant of a residence permit or an extension thereof, the legislation requires payment, by Turkish nationals to whom Article 13 applies, of charges in an amount which is disproportionate in comparison with that demanded in similar circumstances from citizens of the Union (see Sahin , paragraph 72 to 74).
62. However, the imposition of any new measure in that context is not prohibited. The adoption of measures which apply in the same way to both Turkish nationals and citizens of the Union is not inconsistent with the standstill rules. If such measures applied to nationals of Member States but were not also imposed on Turkish nationals, Turkish nationals would be placed in a more favourable position than citizens of the Union, which would be clearly contrary to the requirement laid down in Article 59 of the Additional Protocol, under which the Republic of Turkey may not receive more favourable treatment than that which Member States grant to one another pursuant to the EC Treaty (see, to that effect, Soysal and Savatli , paragraph 61, and Sahin , paragraph 67).
64. While it acknowledges that the charges previously applied were too high, the Kingdom of the Netherlands contends that the amount of the charges applicable to Turkish nationals can be explained by the higher costs involved in processing their files. In that regard, it should be pointed out that, in paragraph 73 of the judgment in Sahin , the Court did not take the view that that ratio justified such a difference, which it found to be significant, between the charges applied to Turkish nationals and those imposed on citizens of the Union for the issue of similar documents.
68. In that regard, the general principle of non-discrimination on grounds of nationality, laid down in Article 9 of the Association Agreement, and the application of that principle to the specific field of workers, in accordance with Article 10 of Decision No 1/80, contribute to facilitating the progressive integration of migrant Turkish workers and Turkish nationals who move for the purposes of establishment or in order to provide services in a Member State (see, to that effect, with regard to workers, Wählergruppe Gemeinsam , paragraph 78).
73. Concerning the charges applied with effect from that date, it must be pointed out that these were introduced after the period laid down in the reasoned opinion. It is settled case-law that the question whether a Member State has failed to fulfil its obligations must be determined by reference to the situation prevailing in that Member State at the end of the period laid down in the reasoned opinion, and the Court cannot take account of any subsequent changes (see, inter alia, Case C‑168/03 Commission  v Spain  [2004] ECR I‑8227, paragraph 24, and judgment of 3 June 2008 in Case C‑507/07 Commission  v France , not published in the ECR, paragraph 7). Consequently, those charges cannot be taken into account by the Court for the purposes of examining the present action for failure to fulfil obligations.