Krank im Urlaub

A declaration of incompatibility from the European Court of Justice has resulted in a change of the German annual leave provisions. Previously, national provisions limited the transfer of annual leave to the first three months of the succeeding year. In cases of long-term illness, these limiting provisions conflicted with the directive 2003/88/EG as employees could not reasonably rely on their guaranteed annual leave. The European Court of Justice declared that an extension of the national annual leave transferring provisions from three to 15 months would render national provisions EU complaint. As an exercise of interpretation, the German Federal Labour Court implemented these standards into German law, allowing employees to transfer up to 15 months of annual leave at the end of each year.
This thesis focuses on the Court’s jurisprudential limitations and consequential legal development, analysing whether this is in fact within the ambit of the role of the Court.