23The Court has also consistently held that, when applying national law, whether the provisions in question were adopted before or after a directive, the national court called on to interpret the directive is required to do so as far as possible in the light of the wording and purpose of the directive in order to achieve the result pursued by the directive and thereby comply with the third paragraph of Article 189 of the EC Treaty (now the third paragraph of Article 249 EC) (see, in particular, Case C-106/89 Marleasing v La Comercial Internacional de Alimentación [1990] ECR I-4135, paragraph 8, and Case C-355/96 Silhouette International Schmied v Hartlauer Handelsgesellschaft [1998] ECR I-4799, paragraph 36).
Source: EUR-Lex, © European Union, 1998-2026. Reuse authorised under Decision 2011/833/EU.