Action brought on 17 March 2014 – European Commission v Italian Republic

(Case C-124/14)

Language of the case: Italian

Parties

Applicant: European Commission (represented by: C. Cattabriga and M. van Beek, acting as Agents)

Defendant: Italian Republic

Form of order sought

The Commission claims that the Court should:

declare that the Italian Republic, by withholding from National Health Service ‘executive’ staff (namely, doctors) the right to a maximum average working week of 48 hours, and from all National Health Service medical staff the right to 11 consecutive hours of rest per day without guaranteeing them an equivalent period of compensatory rest, has failed to fulfil its obligations under Articles 3, 6 and 17(2) of Directive 2003/88/EC;¹

order the Italian Republic to pay the costs of the proceedings.

Pleas in law and main arguments

Articles 3 and 6 of Directive 2003/88/EC require that the Member States take the measures necessary to ensure, first, that every worker is entitled to a minimum daily rest period of 11 consecutive hours per 24-hour period and, second, that the average working time for each seven-day period, including overtime, does not exceed 48 hours. Derogations from those provisions, although not entirely excluded, are nonetheless subject to specific conditions.

When transposing Directive 2003/88, the Italian legislature breached those provisions by excluding all National Health Service ‘executive’ doctors from the scope of the rules relating to the maximum weekly working time and all National Health Service medical staff from the rules relating to the daily rest period.

In particular, the Commission claims that, in the first place, in Italy all doctors who work in the National Health Service are officially classified as ‘executives’ by legislation and by national collective agreements relating to the National Health Service, without necessarily benefitting from executive prerogatives or autonomy over their own working time. In the second place, the Italian authorities have not been able to show that National Health Service medical staff, although excluded from the right to a daily rest period of 11 consecutive hours, none the less benefit from an adequate period of uninterrupted compensatory rest immediately after their period of work has ended.

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¹ Directive 2003/88/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 4 November 2003 concerning certain aspects of the organisation of working time (OJ 2003 L 299, p. 9)