30First, it must be noted that, for the purposes of Article 45 TFEU, any person who pursues activities which are real and genuine, to the exclusion of activities on such a small scale as to be regarded as purely marginal and ancillary, must be regarded as a ‘worker’. According to the case-law of the Court, the essential feature of an employment relationship is that, for a certain period of time, a person performs services for and under the direction of another person in return for which he receives remuneration (see, inter alia, Case 66/85 Lawrie-Blum [1986] ECR 2121, paragraph 17; Case C-138/02 Collins [2004] ECR I-2703, paragraph 26; and Case C-456/02 Trojani [2004] ECR I-7573, paragraph 15).
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