Preliminary reference · referred by the Landesarbeitsgericht Hamm (Germany)
Applicant
KHS AG
Defendant
Winfried Schulte
Rapporteur
E. Levits
Advocate General
V. Trstenjak
Bench
11 judgesV. Skouris, A. Tizzano, J.N. Cunha Rodrigues, K. Lenaerts, J.-C. Bonichot, U. Lõhmus, A. Rosas, E. Levits, A. Ó Caoimh, L. Bay Larsen, A. Arabadjiev
23In that regard, it should be noted first of all that, according to settled case-law, the entitlement of every worker to paid annual leave must be regarded as a particularly important principle of European Union 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 Council Directive 93/104/EC of 23 November 1993 concerning certain aspects of the organisation of working time (OJ 1993 L 307, p. 18) itself, a directive now codified by Directive 2003/88 (see Case C-173/99BECTU [2001] ECR I-4881, paragraph 43; Case C-342/01Merino Gómez [2004] ECR I-2605, paragraph 29; Joined Cases C-131/04 and C-257/04Robinson-Steele and Others [2006] ECR I-2531, paragraph 48; and Joined Cases C-350/06 and C-520/06Schultz-Hoff and Others [2009] ECR I-179, paragraph 22).