Judgment_paragraph 19 · European Commission v Guido Strack (C-579/12 RX)

19The General Court then upheld the first plea and the first part of the second plea, respectively alleging the infringement of Article 4 of Annex V to the Staff Regulations and Article 1e(2) thereof, ruling as follows in paragraphs 38 to 56 of that judgment:38 … [the Civil Service Tribunal] has held that Article 1e(2) of the Staff Regulations … required that the provisions laid down by the Staff Regulations on the organisation of working time and, in particular, annual leave should comply with or at least be equivalent to the minimum requirements laid down by Article 7(1) of Directive 2003/88, as interpreted by the case-law of the Court and, in particular, the judgment in Schultz-Hoff and Others....40 It must be observed, however, that directives are addressed to the Member States and not to the institutions of the Union. The provisions of Directive 2003/88 cannot, therefore, be treated as imposing any obligations as such on the institutions in their relations with their staff. ...…42 However, the fact that a directive does not bind the institutions as such and that it cannot form the basis for a plea of illegality of a provision of the Staff Regulations cannot preclude the rules or principles laid down in those directives from being relied on against the institutions when they themselves simply appear to be the specific expression of fundamental rules of the [EC] Treaty and of general principles which are directly applicable to those institutions (see, to that effect, Case C-25/02 Rinke [2003] ECR I-8349, paragraphs 25 to 28 ...).43 Similarly, a directive may also be binding on an institution where the latter, within the scope of its organisational autonomy and within the limits of the Staff Regulations, has sought to carry out a specific obligation laid down by a directive or in the specific instance where an internal measure of general application itself expressly refers to measures laid down by the Union legislature pursuant to the Treaties ([Case F-65/07] Aayhan and Others v Parliament [[2009] ECR-SC I-A-1-1054 and II-A-1-567], paragraph 116).…45 However, the above exceptions, under which the provisions of a directive may indirectly bind an institution in certain circumstances ... do not apply in this case.46 In that regard, it must be observed, first, … that the entitlement of every worker to paid annual leave under Article 7 of Directive 2003/88 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 the directive itself (Case C‑282/10 Domonguez [2012] ECR, paragraph 16 and the case-law cited).47 It should be noted, secondly, that the right to paid annual leave is expressly laid down in Article 31(2) of the [Charter], which Article 6(1) TEU recognises as having the same legal value as the Treaties (see, to that effect, Case C-214/10 KHS [2011] ECR I-11757, paragraph 37; Case C‑337/10 Neidel [2012] ECR, paragraph 40, and Case C‑78/11 ANGED [2012] ECR, paragraph 17).48 Thirdly, the right to paid annual leave cannot be interpreted restrictively (see ANGED, paragraph 18 and the case-law cited).49 However, even if the right to annual leave can be seen as a general principle of law within the meaning of the case-law set out in paragraph 42 above, which applies directly to the institutions and in the light of which the legality of their acts may be assessed, it cannot, in any event, be considered that Article 4 of Annex V to the Staff Regulations deprived Mr Strack of the exercise of that right.50 That article merely defines the arrangements for carrying over and compensating for days of unused annual leave, by authorising the automatic carry-over to the following year of 12 days of unused annual leave and by providing for the possibility of carrying over the days in excess of that threshold where the failure to use all the annual leave entitlement is due to the requirements of the service. Thus, it cannot be considered that Article 4 of Annex V to the Staff Regulations makes the grant or exercise of the right to annual leave dependent on a condition which deprives it of all substance or that it is incompatible with the structure and purpose of Article 7 of Directive 2003/88. Moreover, the requirement that the carry-over and compensation of unused annual leave be subject to certain conditions appears justified both by the need to prevent unlimited amounts of unused leave building up and by the need to protect the financial interests of the European Union.…52 Finally, it must be pointed out that, the wording of Article 1e(2) of the Staff Regulations does not permit a reading to the effect that this article corresponds to the situation described in paragraph 43 above, in which the institutions intended, by inserting it into the Staff Regulations, to fulfil a particular obligation laid down by Directive 2003/88, or that the reference contained in that article to health and safety standards at least equivalent to the minimum requirements applicable under measures adopted in these areas pursuant to the Treaties is a reference to Article 7(1) of that directive, since that article has a different subject-matter from that of Article 1e of the Staff Regulations.53 First, it must be observed that Article 1e of the Staff Regulations, which forms part of the general provisions of Title I of those regulations, refers to the compliance of the working conditions of officials in active employment with ‘appropriate health and safety standards’, which appears to refer to the minimum technical standards for the protection of the health and safety of workers at their place of work which are not governed by other provisions of the Staff Regulations, and not to minimum health and safety requirements in general, including those relating to the organisation of working time covered by Directive 2003/88 and annual leave in particular. As the Commission points out, such a wide interpretation of Article 1e(2) of the Staff Regulations is at odds with the autonomy of the European Union legislature as regards the civil service, affirmed by Article 336 TFEU.54 Secondly, the Staff Regulations contain specific provisions on the organisation of working time and leave in Title IV and Annex V. The question raised in the present case, concerning the arrangements for the carry-over to the following year of, or compensation for, unused annual leave is specifically governed by Article 4 of Annex V to the Staff Regulations. Since that provision sets out a clear and precise rule, limiting the right to carry over and receive compensation for annual leave in respect of the number of unused days of leave, no use may be made, arguing, by analogy from the judgment in Schultz-Hoff and Others, of the provisions of Directive 2003/88 by relying on another provision of the Staff Regulations, such as Article 1e, as a rule of general application allowing a derogation from the specific rules of the Staff Regulations in this area. That would result in an interpretation contra legem of the Staff Regulations, as the Commission correctly argued before the Civil Service Tribunal.55 It follows that the Civil Service Tribunal erred in applying Article 1e(2) of the Staff Regulations rather than basing its decision on Article 4 of Annex V to those regulations.56 Therefore, it must be held that the Civil Service Tribunal made a twofold error of law by applying Article 7 of Directive 2003/88 to Mr Strack’s situation, on the basis of Article 1e(2) of the Staff Regulations, despite the restrictions contained in Article 4 of Annex V to the Staff Regulations, and in taking the view that that article did not govern the question raised in the present case.’