Judgment_paragraph 55 · Commission of the European Communities v French Republic (C-296/01)

55While it is therefore essential that the legal situation resulting from national implementing measures is sufficiently precise and clear to enable the individuals concerned to know the extent of their rights and obligations, it is none the less the case that, according to the very words of the third paragraph of Article 249 EC, Member States may choose the form and methods for implementing directives which best ensure the result to be achieved by the directives, and that provision shows that the transposition of a directive into national law does not necessarily require legislative action in each Member State. The Court has thus repeatedly held that it is not always necessary formally to enact the requirements of a directive in a specific express legal provision, since the general legal context may be sufficient for implementation of a directive, depending on its content. In particular, the existence of general principles of constitutional or administrative law may render superfluous transposition by specific legislative or regulatory measures provided, however, that those principles actually ensure the full application of the directive by the national authorities and that, where the relevant provision of the directive seeks to create rights for individuals, the legal situation arising from those principles is sufficiently precise and clear and that the persons concerned are put in a position to know the full extent of their rights and obligations and, where appropriate, to be able to invoke them before the national courts (see in particular, to this effect, Case 29/84 Commission v Germany [1985] ECR 1661, paragraphs 22 and 23, Case C-97/01 Commission v Luxembourg [2003] ECR I-5797, paragraph 37, and Case C-233/00 Commission v France [2003] ECR I-6625, paragraph 76).