C. Weekly rest
The 1993 Directive had a somewhat different wording in Article 5 as it included the following sentence: ‘The minimum rest period referred to in the first subparagraph shall in principle include Sunday’. However, this provision was annulled by the Court, which considered that the obligation to fix Sunday rather than any other day of the week as a rest day was not justified in the light of the legal basis used for this Directive, which relates to the protection of the health and safety of workers (189). The sentence was then deleted during the Directive’s amendment by way of Directive 2000/34/EC. Although case-law to date is limited on the subject of weekly rest, the Commission nevertheless outlines the following considerations in light of the wording and objective of the Directive.
Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-09-25 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.