Original scientific paper
The Right to Paid Annual Leave: the Implications of Accession
Željko Potočnjak
Andrea Grgić
Iva Čatipović
Abstract
The right to paid annual leave is a particularly important
principle of EU social law that is regulated by the provisions of Article
7 of the Working Time Directive (WTD), where it enjoys a privileged
status as the only non-derogable right. Significantly, Article 7 of the
WTD Directive has been interpreted by the Court of Justice of the European
Union (CJEU) as a directly effective provision. In Croatian law,
this right has been implemented by means of the Labour Act. In this
article, we examine three aspects of national regulations regarding
paid annual leave against which might raise doubts as to the proper
implementation of Article 7 WTD. First, we look at the regulation on
minimum periods of employment as a precondition for the entitlement
to paid annual leave. Here, we shall argue that the national regulation
is not consistent with EU law, as it triggers the accrual of the right to
paid annual leave only after half a month of employment. After that,
we examine the regulation on the overlap between paid annual leave
and other types of leave. We shall claim that national rules regulating
overlaps between paid annual leave and maternity, parental, adoption,
sick and other paid leave are not in violation of EU law. However,
in the case of the overlap between paid leave and unpaid leave stemming
from the Maternity and Parental Benefits Act, we raise certain
doubts as to the adequacy of national regulations. Our last point of
interest is the regulation concerning the carrying-over of untaken paid
annual leave into the following calendar year, where we argue that
national provisions on the carry-over period are not consistent with
Article 7 WTD.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
131643
URI
Publication date:
17.12.2014.
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