ECJ 21 February 2013, case C-194/12 (Concepción Maestre García - v - Centros Comerciales Carrefour SA), Working time and leave, Paid leave

Facts

Ms  Maestre  Garcia  was  on  sick  leave  from  4  November  2010  to 20  June  2011.  Her  employer  Carrefour  had  scheduled  her  annual summer vacation, lasting 21 days, within that period. She requested her  employer  to  reschedule  her  summer  vacation  to  dates  after  20 June 2011. The request was rejected on grounds of organisational and human-resource problems.

National proceedings

Ms Maestre Garcia brought an action before the Juzgado de lo Social in Benidorm seeking, primarily, an order that Carrefour grant her the 21 days of paid leave that she had been unable to take or, alternatively, an allowance in lieu. The court referred three questions to the ECJ.ECJ’s findings
1.  Given  that  the  answer  to  the  questions  referred  may  be  clearly deduced  from  existing  case-law,  the  ECJ  gives  its  decision  by order, rather than by judgment (§ 13).
2.  The entitlement to paid annual leave is a particularly important principle of EU law, expressly laid down in the Charter. Its purpose is to enable the worker to rest and enjoy a period of relaxation and  leisure.  This  purpose  is  different  from  that  of  sick  leave, which is to recover from an illness. Accordingly, the ECJ has held that a worker who is on sick leave during a period of previously scheduled annual leave has the right to take that leave at a later time. He may request such replacement leave not only prior to the scheduled period of leave but also afterwards, thereby expressing his disagreement with the period allocated to him. Any provision resulting  from  an  agreement  between  the  undertaking  and  its workers’ representatives which denies him that right is irrelevant. Consequently,  although  Directive  2003/88  does  not  prohibit  a worker from taking paid annual leave during a period of sick leave, where a worker does not wish to do so, his employer must allow him to take annual leave during a different period (§ 15-21).
3.  So far as concerns the scheduling of that new period of annual leave,  it  is  subject  to  the  rules  and  procedures  of  national  law, taking  into  account  the  various  interests  involved,  including overriding reasons relating to the undertaking’s interests. If those interests preclude acceptance of the worker’s request for a new period of annual leave, the employer is obliged to grant the worker a different period of leave proposed by him which is compatible with those interests, without excluding in advance the possibility that that period may fall outside the reference period (§ 22-23).
4.  As  Ms  Maestre  Garcia’s  employment  with  Carrefour  has  not ended, an allowance in lieu is prohibited pursuant to Article 7 of Directive 2003/88.

Ruling

1.  Article  7(1)  of  Directive  2003/88  […]  must  be  interpreted  as precluding an interpretation of the national legislation according to which a worker who is on sick leave during a period of annual leave scheduled unilaterally in the annual leave planning schedule of the undertaking which employs him does not have the right, following the end of his sick leave, to take his annual leave at a time other than that originally scheduled, if necessary outside the corresponding reference period, for reasons connected with production or organisation of the undertaking.
2.  Article 7 of Directive 2003/88 must be interpreted as precluding an interpretation of the national legislation that permits, while the  contract  of  employment  is  in  force,  the  payment  of  an allowance in lieu of the period of annual leave which the worker was not able to take as a result of work incapacity.