Legal Guidance on the Working Time Directive

The Interpretative Communication aims to bring legal clarity and certainty to the Member States and other involved stakeholders when applying the Working Time Directive and to assist national authorities, legal practitioners and social partners in its interpretation. To that end, it brings together in a single document the provisions of the Directive and the case law of the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) that interpreted them. 

Over the past 30 years, more than 50 judgments and orders of the CJEU have dealt with the Working Time Directive and interpreted its provisions. This significant amount of case law makes it difficult for Member States, social partners, stakeholders and interested citizens to understand the exact content and extent of the Directive's provisions, since the part contained in CJEU rulings is not easily accessible. Yet this jurisprudence is key to ensure a proper implementation of the Directive in order to avoid that misunderstandings or lack of awareness as to the latest developments in case law lead to compliance issues. 

Clarifying the exact scope of the provisions and of the derogations permitted will help reduce non-conformity and abuses, and thus safely and properly address more flexible forms of work, as well as alleviate administrative burden by decreasing the need for successive changes to national, regional or local legal texts and to established patterns of work organisation. The Interpretative Communication reflects the case law of the CJEU in existence by 26 April 2017. 

Since then the provisions of the Working Time Directive have been interpreted by the CJEU in several cases, which are summarised here: https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=706&intPageId=5115&langId=en