Niederösterreichische Landes-Landwirtschaftskammer v Anneliese Kuso.
Date: 2013-09-12
24. In order to ensure observance of the principles of legal certainty and the protection of legitimate expectations, the substantive rules of EU law must be interpreted as applying to situations existing before their entry into force only in so far as it clearly follows from the terms, the objectives or the general scheme of those rules that such effect must be given to them (see, inter alia, Case C‑162/00 Pokrzeptowicz-Meyer  [2002] ECR I‑1049, paragraph 49 and the case-law cited).
25. It should be recalled, however, that new rules apply immediately to the future effects of a situation which arose under the old rules (Case 270/84 Licata  v CES  [1986] ECR 2305, paragraph 31, and Pokrzeptowicz-Meyer , paragraph 50). The Court has also ruled that, from the date of accession, the provisions of the original Treaties are to be binding on the new Member States and are to apply in those States under the conditions laid down in those Treaties and in the relevant Act of Accession (see Case C‑122/96 Saldanha and MTS  [1997] ECR I‑5352, paragraph 13).
27. The Act of Accession does not lay down any specific conditions regarding the application of Directive 76/207 – apart from a temporary derogation relating to night work for women, under Section V of Annex XV to that Act, which is not a situation which arises in the case before the referring court – and that directive is therefore binding upon the Republic of Austria from the date of its accession to the European Union and accordingly applies to the future effects of situations which came about before that accession (see, to that effect, Saldanha and MTS , paragraph 14).
29. The Court has held that a fixed-term employment contract concluded before the entry into force of the Europe Agreement establishing an Association between the European Communities and their Member States, on the one part, and the Republic of Poland, of the other part, concluded and approved on behalf of the Community by Decision 93/743/EC, ECSC, Euratom of the Council and the Commission of 13 December 1993 (OJ 1993 L 348, p. 1), did not exhaust its legal effects on the date of its signature, but, on the contrary, continued regularly to produce its effects throughout its duration (see, to that effect, Pokrzeptowicz-Meyer , paragraph 52).
30. Furthermore, the scope of the principle of the protection of legitimate expectations cannot be extended to the point of generally preventing new rules from applying to the future effects of situations which have arisen under earlier rules (see, to that effect, Pokrzeptowicz-Meyer , paragraph 55).
32. Secondly, it should be borne in mind that the Court has consistently held that Article 3 of Directive 76/207, which corresponds to Article 5 of that directive in its original version, is unconditional and sufficiently precise to be relied on by an individual against the State (see Case 152/84 Marshall  [1986] ECR 723, paragraph 52, and Case C‑188/89 Foster and Others  [1990] ECR I‑3313, paragraph 21) and that one of the entities against which provisions of a directive capable of having direct effect may be enforced is a body which, whatever its legal form, has been made responsible, pursuant to a measure adopted by a public authority, for providing, subject to the control of that public authority, a service in the public interest and which, for those purposes, enjoys exceptional powers as compared with the rules applicable to relations between individuals (see, to that effect, Foster and Others , paragraph 22). As the referring court states – and neither the parties to the main proceedings nor the Commission contest the point – the NÖ-LLWK is one of the bodies which enjoys exceptional powers as compared with the rules applicable to relations between individuals.
35. Admittedly, the Court has held that the non-renewal of a fixed-term employment contract when it comes to the end of its specified term cannot, in principle, be regarded as a case of dismissal (see, to that effect, Case C‑438/99 Jiménez Melgar  [2001] ECR I‑6915, paragraph 45).
36. However, it is settled case-law that, in the field of equal treatment, the term ‘dismissal’ is broadly construed (see Case 19/81 Burton  [1982] ECR 555, paragraph 9; Marshall , paragraph 34; Case 262/84 Beets-Proper  [1986] ECR 773, paragraph 36; Case C‑207/04 Vergani  [2005] ECR I‑7453, paragraph 27; and Kleist , paragraph 26).
37. Specifically, the Court has held that, in the context of Directive 76/207, the term ‘dismissal’ must be so construed as to cover the ending of the employment relationship between a worker and his employer, even as part of a voluntary redundancy scheme ( Burton , paragraph 9), and that a general policy concerning dismissal involving the dismissal of a woman solely because she has attained or passed the qualifying age for a retirement pension, that age being different under national legislation for men and for women, constitutes discrimination on grounds of sex, contrary to that directive (see, to that effect, Marshall , paragraph 38, and Kleist , paragraph 28).
45. It is settled case-law that the comparability of such situations must be examined in the light, inter alia, of the object of the national legislation establishing the difference in treatment (see, to that effect, Case C‑19/02 Hlozek  [2004] ECR I‑11491, paragraph 46, and Kleist , paragraph 34).
48. That advantage does not place women employees in a specific situation vis-à-vis  men employees, as the situations of men and women are identical so far as the conditions governing termination of the employment relationship are concerned (see Kleist , paragraph 37 and the case-law cited).