The conclusions of Henrik Saugmandsgaard, Advocate General at the CJEU, are 37 pages long, and are articulated in 112 points. They were made public on January 28. And his conclusions are clear: “The military fall within the scope of Directive 2003/88“, which fixes the maximum working time, the incompressible rest period etc.
For the Advocate General, under EU law, soldiers, sailors and airmen are workers like any other, or almost. Because in the specific situations of External Operations (Opex – Barkhane), Internal Operations (Opint – Sentinel), and operational preparation phases, it is excluded to apply labor law: in these cases, he writes, “soldiers must be prepared for fatigue, collective discipline, enemy violence, and rustic working conditions.”
The French position of “available at all times and in all places“is that of a conception”extensive military availability“, continues the magistrate, who prefers the German position to him: to separate the specific activities (Opex, Opint) of the current service, guard of military installations for example. This is moreover from the case of a non-commissioned officer Slovenian, disputing the length of his working time during on-call duty, which was referred to the CJEU.
“You don’t have to be a great clerk to imagine, given the way our soldiers work, what would happen if we applied the 35 hours to them.”
Cédric Perrin, senator
to franceinfo
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This Wednesday, February 3, Senator Cédric Perrin (LR – Territoire de Belfort) asks the government the question: what will you do if the CJEU follows the legal demonstration of the Advocate General? Questioned by franceinfo, the elected representative, vice-president of the Committee for Foreign Affairs, Defense and the Armed Forces, plague against what could create “a monstrous gas plant. With armies partly every 35 hours, we would have an additional HR cost of 20 to 30%.“
“The French army, continues Cédric Perrin, has a singularity: it is an operational army, deployed in several theaters, and which ensures the security of all of Europe in the Sahel.“This peculiarity has, according to him, made the modern configuration of the armed forces and wanting to apply Directive 2003/88 would amount to disorganizing everything.
In his question to the government, the senator recalls that it has the ability to counter-attack by activating Article 4-2 of the Treaty on European Union, which enshrines the right of each member state to do roughly this. he wants in terms of national security, to maintain sovereignty and autonomy over what Cédric Perrin calls “an essential function of the country.”
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