C. An overview of the main provisions
In respect of its material scope of application, the Directive is applicable to all sectors of activity, including to those which deal with events which, by definition, are unforeseeable, such as firefighting or civil protection services. Indeed, the Court has held that the exclusion from the scope of the Directive was strictly limited to exceptional events, such as ‘natural or technological disasters, attacks, serious accidents or similar events’ (14). As concerns the definition of working time, the Court has given specific guidance in its case-law regarding qualification of periods during which workers must remain available to resume their work in case of need, such as ‘on-call’ and ‘stand-by’ (15). The Court held that the time spent ‘on-call’ is to be regarded in its entirety as ‘working time’ within the meaning of the Directive if the worker is required to be present at the workplace separate from his or her residence (16). The entire period of ‘stand-by’, where a worker must be reachable at all times but is not required to remain at a place determined by the employer, qualifies as ‘working time’, when the constraints imposed by the employer during the ‘stand-by’ have an objective and very significant impact on the worker’s possibility to freely manage the time during which the worker’s services are not required and thus on the possibility to pursue his or her personal and social interests during that time (17). By contrast, where these constraints do not have such an effect on a worker’s ability to pursue his or her own interests, only the time linked to the actual provision of services must be regarded as ‘working time’ (18). Importantly, the Directive sets maximum weekly working time at 48 hours. In addition to stressing that all ‘working time’ must be counted towards it, the Communication recalls that this limit is an average which can be calculated over a reference period of up to 4 months even in situations where the derogations are not applicable. On paid annual leave, the Communication outlines the extensive case-law of the Court which covers various aspects ranging from the obligation to grant workers a right to carry over untaken paid annual leave where they did not have the opportunity to exercise that right, for example due to sick leave (19), to the clarification that the principle of paid annual leave vested in Article 31(2) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union has horizontal and vertical direct effect, meaning it can be invoked directly in proceedings between private individuals (20) and between private individuals and emanations of the state (21). However, additional periods of paid annual leave granted by the Member States in excess of the four weeks required by the Directive can be subject to conditions set out in national law (22). A significant number of derogations are also available in the Directive and allow to accommodate the specific requirements of certain activities or sectors while protecting workers against adverse effects caused by excessively long hours and inadequate rest. Having regard to their number and to the different conditions to which they are subject, they constitute a rather complex scheme and the Communication therefore tries to clarify the conditions for use of these derogations as well as the provisions and extent to which derogations are permitted. For example, the derogation permitted for autonomous workers is neither automatically applicable nor limited to the three categories of workers listed in the relevant article (managing executives or other persons with autonomous decision-taking powers; family workers and workers officiating at religious ceremonies in churches and religious communities) but requires that the working time of the workers concerned is not measured and/or predetermined as a whole (23) or that it can be determined by the workers themselves. Also, in respect of the individual opt-out from the 48-hour weekly limitation to working time, the Communication recalls that the consent has to be individual and cannot be replaced by consent given by trade-union representatives for example in the context of a collective agreement (24) and that workers must be protected against any detriment, and not only against a dismissal, where they do not or no longer agree to opt-out.
Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-09-25 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.