§1 Principle: the Directive applies to all sectors

Article 1 of the Working Time Directive provides that: ‘[…] 3. This Directive shall apply to all sectors of activity, both public and private, within the meaning of Article 2 of Directive 89/391/EEC, without prejudice to Articles 14, 17, 18 and 19 of this Directive. […]’ Article 2 of Directive 89/391/EEC on the introduction of measures to encourage improvements in the health and safety of workers at work to which reference is made provides that: ‘1. This Directive shall apply to all sectors of activity, both public and private (industrial, agricultural, commercial, administrative, service, educational, cultural, leisure, etc.). 2. This Directive shall not be applicable where characteristics peculiar to certain specific public service activities, such as the armed forces or the police, or to certain specific activities in the civil protection services inevitably conflict with it. In that event, the safety and health of workers must be ensured as far as possible in the light of the objectives of this Directive.’ In accordance with well-established case-law of the Court, which takes account of the objective of the Directive, namely to encourage improvement in the health and safety of workers at work, and of the wording of Article 2(1) of Directive 89/391/EEC, the scope of the Working Time Directive must be interpreted broadly (52). As a consequence, exclusion from the scope set out in Article 2(2) of Directive 89/391/EEC must be interpreted restrictively (53) and ‘in such a way that its ambit is confined to what is strictly necessary in order to safeguard the interests which it enables the Member States to protect’ (54). In point of fact, the Court has ruled that this exclusion does not apply to the sectors of activity considered in their entirety. Its sole aim is to ensure ‘the proper operation of services essential for the protection of public health, safety and order in cases, such as a catastrophe, the gravity and scale of which are exceptional and a characteristic of which is the fact that they are liable to expose the health and safety of workers to considerable risk and that, by their nature, they do not lend themselves to planning as regards the working time of teams of emergency workers’ (55). The Court has established that although certain services must deal with events which, by definition, are unforeseeable, the activities which they entail in normal conditions and which also correspond to the duties specifically assigned to a service of that kind are nonetheless capable of being organised in advance, including the working hours of staff and the prevention of risks to safety and/or health (56). As a result, exclusion from scope does not depend on whether workers belong to one of the sectors referred to in Directive 89/391/EEC. It depends rather on the specific nature of certain individual tasks carried out by employees in those sectors. Given the need to ensure effective protection of the community, such tasks justify an exception to the rules laid down in that Directive. The Working Time Directive is therefore applicable to the activities of the armed forces, the police, or the civil protection services. It is also applicable to other specific public service activities as long as they are carried out under normal circumstances. In its case-law, the Court has ruled that the Directive applies to the activities of primary care teams and medical and nursing staff providing services in primary healthcare teams (57). It also applies to other services which respond to emergencies such as medical and nursing staff in primary care teams and in other services which treat outside emergencies (58), workers in an emergency medical service (59), intervention forces of public firefighters (60), municipal police (61), or non-civilian personnel of public administrations where their duties are carried out under normal circumstances (62). The Directive further applies to members of the armed forces (63).

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-09-07