Judgment_paragraph 33 · Tevfik Isbir v DB Services GmbH (C-522/12)

33In that regard, it should be noted that the European Union legislature adopted Directive 96/71 with a view, as is clear from recital 6 in the preamble to that directive, to laying down, in the interests of the employers and their personnel, the terms and conditions governing the employment relationship where an undertaking established in one Member State posts workers on a temporary basis to the territory of another Member State for the purposes of providing a service. It follows from recital 13 in the preamble to that directive that the laws of the Member States must be coordinated in order to lay down a nucleus of mandatory rules for minimum protection to be observed in the host Member State by employers who post workers there. Nevertheless, that directive did not harmonise the material content of those mandatory rules for minimum protection. That content may accordingly be freely defined by the Member States, in compliance with the EC Treaty and the general principles of European Union law (Case C-341/05 Laval un Partneri [2007] ECR I-11767, paragraphs 58 to 60).