Keywords
Summary

Keywords

Freedom of movement for persons - Workers - Equal treatment - Conditions of employment - Administrative or contractual practices operated by certain public universities leading to the refusal of recognition of rights acquired by former foreign-language assistants - Discrimination - Not permissible (EC Treaty, Art. 48 (now, after amendment, Art. 39 EC)

Summary

$$The principle of equality of treatment, of which Article 48 of the Treaty (now, after amendment, Article 39 EC) is a specific expression, prohibits not only overt discrimination based on nationality but also all covert forms of discrimination which, by applying other distinguishing criteria, lead in fact to the same result.

Contractual and administrative practices operated by certain public universities in a Member State which do not recognise the rights acquired by former foreign-language assistants, who have become associates and mother-tongue linguistic experts, even though such recognition is guaranteed to all national workers, lead to discriminatory situations. By not guaranteeing the said assistants recognition of the rights acquired, the Member State in point has therefore failed to fulfil its obligations under Article 48 of the Treaty.

( see paras. 24, 31, 36 and operative part )