Enhancing horizontal direct effect one step further?

• Department of Law

The EU Law Working Group hosts the sixth session of the 'CJEU in Focus'

In the last week of every month, the EU Law Working Group organises the CJEU in Focus, providing an opportunity to discuss the important judgments recently delivered by the CJEU. The judgments are suggested by members of the EUI community.

About the judgment:

On the 20th of March 2024, the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union issued a judgment concerning the horizontal direct effect of Directive 1999/70 concerning fixed-term work. The question was whether a national Polish legislation which only required a statement of reasons for termination of indefinite contracts of work (and not for definite contracts) could be set aside in a horizontal dispute, because of its incompatibility with the Directive - which prohibits such discrimination between fixed-term and permanent workers.

Whereas the Advocate General had expressed its doubts as to how this Directive could be given horizontal direct effect, the Court established that it could, by referring to Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

The judgment is interesting as the Court seems to adopt a new approach towards the horizontal direct effect of directives in link with Charter provisions, expanding the standard that has been set in the Bauer (C-569 and -570/16) and Kükükdeveci (C-555/07) cases.