Keywords
Summary

Keywords

1. Social policy ° Protection of workers' health and safety ° Directive 93/104 concerning certain aspects of the organization of working time ° Legal basis ° Article 118a of the Treaty ° Limits ° Fixing of Sunday as the weekly rest day ° Annulment of the second paragraph of Article 5 of the directive

(EC Treaty, Arts 100, 100a and 118a; Council Directive 93/104, Art. 5, second para.)

2. Acts of the institutions ° Choice of legal basis ° Criteria ° Practice of an institution ° Irrelevant with regard to Treaty rules

3. EC Treaty ° Article 235 ° Scope

4. Community law ° Principles ° Proportionality ° Scope ° Infringement by Directive 93/104 concerning certain aspects of the organization of working time ° None

(Council Directive 93/104)

5. Actions for annulment ° Pleas in law ° Misuse of powers ° Definition ° Council Directive 93/104 ° Legality

(Council Directive 93/104)

6. Acts of the institutions ° Statement of reasons ° Duty ° Scope

(EC Treaty, Art. 190)

Summary

1. Article 118a of the Treaty is the appropriate legal basis for the adoption by the Community of measures whose principal aim is the protection of the health and safety of workers, notwithstanding the ancillary effects which such measures may have on the establishment and functioning of the internal market. Since its aim is to ensure that protection, Article 118a constitutes a more specific rule than Articles 100 and 100a, the existence of which does not have the effect of restricting its scope, and must be widely interpreted as regards the scope it gives for Community legislative action regarding the health and safety of workers. Such action may comprise measures which are of general application, not merely measures specific to certain categories of workers, and which have to be in the nature of minimum requirements only in the sense that Member States remain at liberty to adopt more protective measures.

It is for that reason that, in terms of both its aim and its content, Directive 93/104 concerning certain aspects of the organization of working time could, save for the provisions in the second paragraph of Article 5 giving priority to Sunday as the weekly rest day which must therefore be annulled, be adopted on the basis of Article 118a.

2. As part of the system of Community competence, the choice of the legal basis for a measure must be based on objective factors which are amenable to judicial review. Those factors include, in particular, the aim and content of the measure.

A mere Council practice cannot derogate from the rules laid down in the Treaty, and cannot therefore create a precedent binding on the Community institutions where, prior to the adoption of a measure, they have to determine the correct legal basis for it.

3. Article 235 of the Treaty may be used as the legal basis for a measure only where no other Treaty provision confers on the Community institutions the necessary power to adopt it.

4. The adoption by the Council of Directive 93/104 concerning certain aspects of the organization of working time did not constitute an infringement of the principle of proportionality.

The limited power of review which the Community judicature has over the Council' s exercise of its wide discretion in the area of the protection of workers' health and safety, where social policy choices and complex assessments are involved, has not revealed either that the measures forming the subject-matter of the directive, save for that contained in the second paragraph of Article 5, were unsuited to achieving the aim pursued, namely workers' health and safety, or that those measures, which have a degree of flexibility, went beyond what was necessary to attain their objective.

5. An act of a Community institution is vitiated by a misuse of powers if it has been adopted with the exclusive or main purpose of achieving ends other than those stated or evading a procedure specifically prescribed by the Treaty for dealing with the circumstances of the case.

That is not the case with Council Directive 93/104 concerning certain aspects of the organization of working time, since it has not been established that it was adopted with the exclusive or main purpose of achieving an end other than the protection of the health and safety of workers envisaged by Article 118a of the Treaty which constitutes its legal basis.

6. Whilst the statement of reasons required by Article 190 of the Treaty must show clearly and unequivocally the reasoning of the Community authority which adopted the contested measure so as to enable the persons concerned to ascertain the reasons for it and to enable the Court to exercise judicial review, the authority is not required to go into every relevant point of fact and law.

Where a contested measure clearly discloses the essential objective pursued by the institution, it would be pointless to require a specific statement of reasons for each of the technical choices made by it.