Judgment_paragraph 17 · Andrea Francovich and Danila Bonifaci and others v Italian Republic (C-6/90, C-9/90)

17Article 3 of the directive thus leaves the Member State a discretion in determining the date from which payment of claims must be ensured. However, as is already implicit in the Court's case-law (see the judgments in Case 71/85 Netherlands v FNV [1986] ECR 3855 and Case 286/85 McDermott and Cotter v Minister for Social Welfare and Attorney General [1987] ECR 1453, paragraph 15), the right of a State to choose among several possible means of achieving the result required by a directive does not preclude the possibility for individuals of enforcing before the national courts rights whose content can be determined sufficiently precisely on the basis of the provisions of the directive alone.