María Paz Merino Gómez v Continental Industrias del Caucho SA.
Date: 2004-03-18
29. The entitlement of every worker to paid annual leave must be regarded as a particularly important principle of Community 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 Directive 93/104 ( BECTU , paragraph 43).
30. It is significant in that connection that the directive also embodies the rule that a worker must normally be entitled to actual rest, with a view to ensuring effective protection of his health and safety, since it is only where the employment relationship is terminated that Article 7(2) permits an allowance to be paid in lieu of paid annual leave ( BECTU , paragraph 44).
31. Article 7(1) of Directive 93/104, by virtue of which the Member States are to take the necessary measures ‘in accordance with the conditions for entitlement to, and granting of, such leave laid down by national legislation and/or practice’, must be understood as meaning that the national implementing rules must in any event take account of the right to paid annual leave of at least four weeks.
32. The purpose of the entitlement to annual leave is different from that of the entitlement to maternity leave. Maternity leave is intended, first, to protect a woman’s biological condition during and after pregnancy and, second, to protect the special relationship between a woman and her child over the period which follows pregnancy and childbirth (see Case 184/83 Hofmann  [1984] ECR 3047, paragraph 25, Thibault , paragraph 25, and Boyle , paragraph 41).
33. Article 7(1) of Directive 93/104 must thus be interpreted as meaning that where the dates of a worker’s maternity leave coincide with those of the entire workforce’s annual leave, the requirements of the directive relating to paid annual leave cannot be regarded as met.
34. Furthermore, Article 11(2)(a) of Directive 92/85 provides that the rights connected with the employment contract of a worker, other than the rights referred to in Article 11(2)(b), must be ensured in a case of maternity leave.
35. Therefore, that must be the case so far as the entitlement to paid annual leave is concerned.
37. The directive is intended to bring about equality in substance rather than in form. The exercise of rights conferred on women as referred to in Article 2(3) of Directive 76/207 by provisions intended to protect women in relation to pregnancy and maternity cannot be made subject to unfavourable treatment regarding their working conditions (see Thibault , paragraph 26).
38. It follows that Article 5(1) of Directive 76/207 is to be interpreted as meaning that a worker must be able to take her annual leave during a period other than the period of her maternity leave.
41. In view of all the foregoing considerations, the answer to the first question must be that Article 7(1) of Directive 93/104, Article 11(2)(a) of Directive 92/85 and Article 5(1) of Directive 76/207 are to be interpreted as meaning that a worker must be able to take her annual leave during a period other than the period of her maternity leave, including in a case in which the period of maternity leave coincides with the general period of annual leave fixed, by a collective agreement, for the entire workforce.
The second question