EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 71/8

(Case C-596/12)

2013/C 71/13

Language of the case: Italian

Parties

Applicant: European Commission (represented by: J. Enegren and C. Cattabriga, Agents)

Defendant: Italian Republic

Form of order sought

—Declare that, by excluding the category of managers from the scope of the redundancy process laid down in Article 4 of Law No 223/1991, in conjunction with Article 24 of that Law, the Italian Republic has failed to fulfil its obligations under Article 1(1) and (2) of Council Directive 98/59/EC of 20 July 1998 on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to collective redundancies; (<a id="ntc1-C_2013071EN.01000801-E0001" href="#ntr1-C_2013071EN.01000801-E0001"> (1)</a>

—order the Italian Republic to pay the costs.

Pleas in law and main arguments

The Commission submits that, by excluding the category of managers from the scope of the redundancy process (<span class="italic">procedura di mobilità</span>) laid down in Article 4 of Law No 223/1991, in conjunction with Article 24 of that Law, the Italian Republic has failed to fulfil its obligations under Article 1(1) and (2) of Directive 98/59/EC.

That directive regulates the procedure for informing and consulting with the workers’ representatives which must be followed by an employer where he is contemplating collective redundancies, as well as the procedure for collective redundancies itself.

Pursuant to Article 1(1) and (2) of the directive, such procedures apply to dismissals effected by an employer for one or more reasons not related to the individual workers concerned, where the number of redundancies is above a certain threshold set by reference to the number of workers in the undertaking. In calculating the number of workers employed by the undertaking and also the number of redundancies effected, all workers are included, regardless of their qualifications or duties, the only exceptions being those with contracts of employment concluded for limited periods of time, public employees and the crews of seagoing vessels.

In implementing Directive 98/59/EC, the Italian legislature excluded from the scope of the information and consultation procedures established by it in the case of collective redundancies the category of managers, which, according to the Italian Civil Code, is included within the concept of a worker. Such an exclusion is not only contrary to the general scope of the directive, but is also wholly unjustified. The category of managers in Italian law is, indeed, very broad and even includes workers not entrusted with particular management powers in the context of the undertaking and defined as managers only in that they possesses a high level of professional qualifications.

(<span class="super">1</span>) OJ 1998 L 225, p. 16.