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According to the Court, unlike in a situation of accumulation of entitlement to paid annual leave by a worker who was unfit for work due to sickness, an employer who does not allow a worker to exercise his or her right to paid annual leave must bear the consequences (251). In the absence of any national statutory or collective provision establishing a limit to the carry-over of leave in accordance with the requirements of EU law, paid annual leave cannot lapse at the end of the reference period (252). Indeed, the Court has held that if it were to be accepted, in that context, that the worker’s acquired entitlement to paid annual leave could be extinguished, that would amount to ‘validating conduct by which an employer was unjustly enriched to the detriment [of] workers’ health’ (253).
Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-09-25 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.