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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> Court of Justice of the European Communities (including Court of First Instance Decisions) >> Commission v Portugal (Social policy) [2004] EUECJ C-55/02 (12 October 2004)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/eu/cases/EUECJ/2004/C5502.html
Cite as: [2004] ECR I-9387, [2004] EUECJ C-55/02, [2004] EUECJ C-55/2

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IMPORTANT LEGAL NOTICE - IMPORTANT LEGAL NOTICE - The source of this judgment is the web site of the Court of Justice of the European Communities. The information in this database has been provided free of charge and is subject to a Court of Justice of the European Communities disclaimer and a copyright notice. This electronic version is not authentic and is subject to amendment.

JUDGMENT OF THE COURT (Second Chamber)
12 October 2004 (1)

(Member State's failure to fulfil obligations - Articles 1, 6 and 7 of Directive 98/59/EC - Concept of -�collective redundancy-� - Rules governing dismissals assimilated to redundancies - Incomplete transposition)

In Case C-55/02,

ACTION under Article 226 EC for failure to fulfil obligations,

brought on 22 February 2002,

Commission of the European Communities, represented by J. Sack and M. França, acting as Agents, with an address for service in Luxembourg,

applicant,

v

Portuguese Republic, represented by L. Fernandes and F. Ribeiro Lopes, acting as Agents, with an address for service in Luxembourg,

defendant,

THE COURT (Second Chamber),

composed of C.W.A. Timmermans, President of the Chamber, C. Gulmann, F. Macken, N. Colneric (Rapporteur), and J.N. Cunha Rodrigues, Judges,

Advocate General: A. Tizzano,
Registrar: R. Grass,

having regard to the written procedure,

after hearing the Opinion of the Advocate General at the sitting on 11 March 2004,

gives the following

Judgment

By its application, the Commission of the European Communities asks the Court to declare that, by restricting the concept of collective redundancies to redundancies for structural, technological or cyclical reasons, and by failing to extend that concept to dismissals for any reason not related to the individual workers concerned, the Portuguese Republic has failed to fulfil its obligations under the EC Treaty and under Articles 1, 6 and 7 of Council Directive 98/59/EC of 20 July 1998 on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to collective redundancies (OJ 1998 L 225, p. 16).

Legal background

The relevant provisions of Community law

Council Directive 75/129/EEC of 17 February 1975 on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to collective redundancies (OJ 1975 L 48, p. 29), as amended by Council Directive 92/56/EEC of 24 June 1992 (OJ 1992 L 245, p. 3), was repealed with a view to its being consolidated by Directive 98/59 (-�the Directive-�). At that point no new period for transposition was prescribed.

The second recital in the preamble to the Directive states that -�it is important that greater protection should be afforded to workers in the event of collective redundancies while taking into account the need for balanced economic and social development within the Community-�.

According to the third recital in the preamble to the Directive, -�despite increasing convergence, differences still remain between the provisions in force in the Member States concerning the practical arrangements and procedures for such redundancies and the measures designed to alleviate the consequences of redundancy for workers-�.

Under the fourth recital in the preamble, -�these differences can have a direct effect on the functioning of the internal market-�.

The seventh recital in the preamble states that -�this approximation must -� be promoted while the improvement is being maintained within the meaning of Article 117 of the Treaty-�.

Under the eighth recital in the preamble, -�in order to calculate the number of redundancies provided for in the definition of collective redundancies within the meaning of this Directive, other forms of termination of employment contracts on the initiative of the employer should be equated to redundancies, provided that there are at least five redundancies-�.

Under the ninth recital in the preamble, the Directive -�applies in principle also to collective redundancies resulting where the establishment-�s activities are terminated as a result of a judicial decision-�.

Article 1 of the Directive is worded as follows:

Article 2 of the Directive lays down a procedure for consulting and informing workers-� representatives.

The first paragraph of Article 2(2) of the Directive provides:

Articles 3 and 4 of the Directive set out the rules governing the procedure for collective redundancies.

Article 3(1) of the Directive provides:

Under Article 4 of the Directive:

Article 6 of the Directive states:

Article 7 of the Directive is worded as follows:

The relevant provisions of domestic law

Article 53 of the Portuguese Constitution provides:

The Directive was transposed into the Portuguese legal order by Decree-Law No 64-A/89 of 27 February 1989 concerning the legal rules governing the termination of individual contracts of employment and the conclusion and expiry of fixed-term contracts of employment (Diário da República I, Series I, No 48, of 27 February 1989, -�the LCCL-�). Law No 32/99 of 18 May 1999 (Diário da República I, Series I-A, No 115, of 18 May 1999) amended the rules on collective redundancies, laid down in the legal rules governing the termination of individual contracts of employment and the conclusion of fixed-term contracts of employment, approved by that decree-law.

Article 3 of the LCCL, headed -�Forms of termination of contracts of employment-�, forms part of Chapter I of that law, itself headed -�General principles-�. It provides:

Article 4 of the LCCL, headed -�Causes of expiry-�, forms part of Chapter II of that law, which is headed -�Expiry of the contract of employment-�. It provides:

Article 6 of the LCCL, concerning the death of an individual employer or the winding-up of a corporate employer, also forming part of Chapter II of that law, provides:

Chapter V of the LCCL deals with the termination of contracts of employment on the basis of job losses for objective structural, technological or cyclical reasons relating to the undertaking. This chapter contains two sections, the first headed -�Collective redundancy-� and the second -�Termination of the contract of employment for job losses not included in collective redundancy-�.

Article 16 of the LCCL, headed -�Definition-�, which is the first article in Section I, provides:

In addition, Section I of Chapter V of the LCCL provides, in particular, for the communications and consultations to be effected by the employer, in Articles 17 and 18, the action to be taken by the competent national authority, in Article 19, workers-� rights, in Article 23, and the consequences of unlawful redundancies, in Article 24.

Section II of Chapter V of the LCCL concerns, inter alia, the reasons for job losses, in Article 26, the conditions for termination of the contract of employment, in Article 27, the communications to be made by the employer, in Article 28, the procedure to be followed, in Article 29, termination of the contract of employment, in Article 30, and workers-� rights, in Article 32.

In accordance with Article 27(1)(b) and (c) of the LCCL, termination of the contract of employment is subject, in particular, to the condition that it should be impossible in practice to maintain the employment relationship and that there should exist no fixed-term contracts for duties corresponding to those of the job lost.

In Chapter VIII of the LCCL, headed -�Special cases of termination of the contract of employment-�, Article 56, concerning situations where the employer is placed in compulsory liquidation or is insolvent, provides:

Article 172 of the Portuguese Code of Special Procedures in judicial settlements and compulsory liquidation, approved by Decree-Law No 132/93 of 23 April 1993 (Diário da República I, Series I-A, No 95, of 23 April 1993), and amended by Decree-Law No 315/98 of 20 October 1998 (Diário da República I, Series I-A, No 242, of 20 October 1998), provides:

The pre-litigation procedure

Taking the view that the LCCL was in part incompatible with the provisions of the Directive, the Commission initiated the infringement procedure. Having given the Portuguese Republic formal notice to submit its observations, the Commission sent a reasoned opinion to that Member State on 29 December 2000 requesting it to take the measures necessary to comply therewith within a period of two months from the date of its notification.

Considering that the information supplied by the Portuguese authorities showed that the infringement indicated in the reasoned opinion still subsisted, the Commission decided to bring the present action.

Concerning the action

The Commission takes the view that the concept of collective redundancies in Portuguese law does not cover all the cases of collective redundancies mentioned in the Directive. As a result, the provisions of Portuguese law are more restricted in ambit than those of the Directive.

The Commission states that the definition of -�collective redundancies-�, set out in Article 16 of the LCCL, does not, for example, include the case of redundancies made by an employer for reasons not related to the individual workers in cases of a declaration of compulsory liquidation, liquidation procedures similar to those just mentioned, compulsory purchase, fire or other case of force majeure, or in the case of termination of an undertaking-�s activity following the death of the trader.

The Portuguese Government maintains that the Commission-�s action is without foundation, save for the part concerning the transfer of contracts of employment, in the terminal stage of realising the assets in a compulsory liquidation procedure, as a result of the definitive closure of establishments that have not been sold in their entirety. In fact, the situations mentioned by the Commission, in particular circumstances, are not in its view covered by the definition of collective redundancy provided in the Directive and, in other cases, are governed by the rules on collective redundancy established by the Portuguese legislation.

The definition of -�collective redundancy-� provided by the Directive

The Portuguese Government maintains that no effort was made to define -�redundancy-� in the Directive because most of the legal orders of the Member States adopt the common definition of a voluntary act of the employer intended to bring to an end the employment relationship and communicated to the worker.

It contends that the Directive does not provide that any termination whatsoever of a contract of employment for reasons not related to the individual worker is to be classified as -�redundancy-�.

It submits, moreover, that it is impossible to apply the entire body of rules laid down by the Directive to situations in which the expiry of contracts of employment on the definitive termination of the undertaking-�s activities is not contingent on the will of the employer. That fact confirms that such situations are not classified as collective redundancies. The Directive was not intended to apply to such situations.

According to the Portuguese Government, there is a dilemma, the horns of which are the full application of the Directive and its exclusion. Since many serious obligations provided for by the Directive do not apply in certain situations where the definitive termination of the undertaking-�s activities is not contingent on the employer-�s will, it must be concluded that the Directive in its entirety does not apply to such situations.

The Commission acknowledges that the Directive does not define the concept of -�redundancy-�. In its view, however, the lack of a definition does not authorise the Member States to exclude from the Directive-�s ambit situations such as those subject to a body of rules on the expiry of contracts of employment in Portuguese law.

According to the Commission, it is a flagrant breach of Community law for the Portuguese Government, faced with the supposed -�dilemma-� of a choice between -�the full application of the Directive and its exclusion-�, to opt for non-application of the Directive.

It remarks that, apropos of cases of compulsory purchase, fire or other cases of force majeure, the Portuguese Government gives evidence of misunderstanding the protective rules introduced by the Directive, probably as a result of a selective reading of Sections II, -�Information and consultation-�, and III, -�Procedure for collective redundancies-�, of the Directive.

In this regard, the Commission maintains, inter alia, that it is quite consistent for the consultation of workers-� representatives to cover means of mitigating the consequences of redundancy by considering accompanying social measures aimed at redeploying or retraining workers made redundant, even if it was not possible to avoid the definitive closure of the undertaking and therefore the termination of the contracts of employment.

According to the Commission, the Portuguese Government has put forward an interpretation of the collective redundancies procedure that renders pointless the various provisions of the Directive. That is particularly so with regard to the obligation laid down in Article 3 of that directive, which requires employers to notify in writing the competent public authority of any projected collective redundancies. Both an employer whose undertaking has been destroyed by fire and the heirs of a deceased trader are in a position to perform that obligation.

Pursuant to Article 1(1)(a) of the Directive, -�collective redundancies-� means dismissals effected by an employer for one or more reasons not related to the individual workers concerned provided that certain conditions concerning numbers and periods of time are satisfied.

The Directive does not give an express definition of -�redundancy-�. That concept must, however, be given a uniform interpretation for the purposes of the Directive.

It follows both from the requirements of the uniform application of Community law and the principle of equality that the terms of a provision of Community law which make no express reference to the law of the Member States for the purpose of determining its meaning and scope must normally be given an autonomous and uniform interpretation throughout the Community; that interpretation must take into account the context of the provision and the purpose of the legislation in question (Case C-287/98 Linster [2000] ECR I-6917, paragraph 43, and Case C-'40/01 Ansul [2003] ECR I-2439, paragraph 26).

In this case, Article 1(1)(a) of the Directive, unlike Article 1(1)(b) thereof which expressly provides that -�workers-� representatives-� means the workers-� representatives provided for by the laws or practices of the Member States, does not make any express reference to the law of the Member States so far as the definition of -�redundancy-� is concerned.

In addition, it follows from the title of, and from the third, fourth and seventh recitals in the preamble to, the Directive that the objective pursued by the latter is to further the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to collective redundancies.

By harmonising the rules applicable to collective redundancies, the Community legislature intended both to ensure comparable protection for workers-� rights in the different Member States and to harmonise the costs which such protective rules entail for Community undertakings (Case C-383/92 Commission v United Kingdom [1994] ECR I-2479, paragraph 16).

Accordingly, the concept of -�redundancy-�, as mentioned in Article 1(1)(a) of the Directive, may not be defined by any reference to the laws of the Member States, but has instead meaning in Community law.

The concept has to be interpreted as including any termination of contract of employment not sought by the worker, and therefore without his consent. It is not necessary that the underlying reasons should reflect the will of the employer.

That interpretation of the concept of -�redundancy-� for the purposes of the Directive follows from the aim pursued by the latter and from the background to the provision at issue.

The second recital in the preamble to the Directive makes it clear that that act is designed to strengthen the protection of workers in the case of collective redundancies. According to the third and seventh recitals in the preamble to the Directive, it is chiefly the differences remaining between the provisions in force in the Member States concerning the measures apt to mitigate the consequences of collective redundancies which must form the subject-matter of a harmonisation of laws.

The objectives referred to in the Directive would be attained only in part if the termination of a contract of employment that was not contingent on the will of the employer were to be excluded from the body of rules laid down by the Directive.

As regards the background to the provision at issue, the ninth recital in the preamble to the Directive and the second paragraph of Article 3(1) thereof make it clear that the Directive applies, as a rule, also to collective redundancies caused by termination of the establishment-�s activities as a result of a judicial decision. In that situation, the termination of contracts of employment is the result of circumstances not willed by the employer.

In that context, it has to be added that in its original version, namely, Directive 75/129, the Directive had provided in Article 1(2)(d) that it did not apply to workers affected by the termination of an establishment-�s activities where that was the result of a judicial decision. That article provided an exception to the rule laid down by Article 1(1)(a), which stated, in terms the same as those used in the equivalent provision of Directive 98/59, that for the purposes of that directive -�collective redundancies-� means dismissals effected by an employer for one or more reasons not related to the individual workers concerned. That exception would not have been needed had the concept of -�redundancy-� taken the form of a willed act of the employer.

As the Advocate General has correctly noted in points 46 and 47 of his Opinion, redundancies are to be distinguished from terminations of the contract of employment which, on the conditions set out in the last paragraph of Article 1(1) of the Directive, are assimilated to redundancies for want of the worker-�s consent.

The interpretation offered in paragraph 50 above cannot be gainsaid by arguing that full application of the Directive is, for example, impossible in some circumstances in which the definitive termination of the undertaking-�s activity is not contingent upon the employer-�s will. In any case, application of the Directive in its entirety is not to be excluded for those circumstances.

In accordance with the first paragraph of Article 2(2) of the Directive, the purpose of consulting the workers-� representatives is not only to avoid collective redundancies or to reduce the number of workers affected, but also, inter alia, to mitigate the consequences of such redundancies by recourse to accompanying social measures aimed, in particular, at aid for redeploying or retraining workers made redundant. It would run counter to the spirit of the Directive to narrow the ambit of that provision by giving a restrictive interpretation of the concept of -�redundancy-�.

Considerations of the same kind hold good so far as the obligations laid down in Article 3 of the Directive to notify the competent public authority are concerned. Those obligations, adapted where appropriate in accordance with the power granted to the Member States by the second paragraph of Article 3(1), could quite well be performed by an employer in cases where contracts of employment have to be terminated because of circumstances not contingent on his will. A contrary interpretation would deprive workers of the protection given by that provision and by Article 4 of the Directive.

It follows from all the foregoing considerations that termination of a contract of employment cannot escape the application of the Directive just because it depends on external circumstances not contingent on the employer-�s will.

Legal assessment of the Portuguese legislation

All the situations mentioned in paragraph 32 above that the Portuguese Government has acknowledged are classified as -�expiry of the contract-� in the Portuguese legal order fall within the ambit of the Directive, for they are covered by the definition of -�redundancy-� for the purposes of that act.

It matters little that in Portuguese law those situations are not classified as redundancies but as the expiry by operation of law of the contract of employment. They are in point of fact terminations of the contract of employment against the will of the worker, and are therefore redundancies for the purposes of the Directive.

In consequence, the Portuguese Republic has not properly transposed Article 1(1)(a) of the Directive.

The allegation relating to failure to fulfil obligations under Article 6 of the Directive is also well founded. Nothing indicates that the Portuguese Republic, even though adopting a more restrictive interpretation of -�redundancy-� than that given in the Directive, has nevertheless taken care that there should be available to workers in all the situations of collective redundancy within the meaning of the Directive administrative and/or judicial procedures in order to enforce the obligations laid down by the Directive.

In so far as the action concerns Article 7 of the Directive, it has to be stated that the Commission has not explained how the Portuguese Republic is supposed to have infringed that provision.

As a result, it must be held that, by restricting the concept of collective redundancies to redundancies for structural, technological or cyclical reasons, and by failing to extend that concept to dismissals for any reason not related to the individual workers concerned, the Portuguese Republic has failed to fulfil its obligations under Articles 1 and 6 of the Directive, and the remainder of the action must be dismissed.

Costs

Under Article 69(2) of the Rules of Procedure, the unsuccessful party is to be ordered to pay the costs, if they have been applied for. Since the Commission has applied for an order for costs against the Portuguese Republic and since the latter has been largely unsuccessful, it must be ordered to bear the costs.

1. Declares that, by restricting the concept of collective redundancies to redundancies for structural, technological or cyclical reasons, and by failing to extend that concept to dismissals for any reason not related to the individual workers concerned, the Portuguese Republic has failed to fulfil its obligations under Articles 1 and 6 of Council Directive 98/59/EC of 20 July 1998 on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to collective redundancies;

2. Dismisses the remainder of the action;

3. Orders the Portuguese Republic to pay the costs.

1 - Language of the case: Portuguese.

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