European Union - Employment - Prohibition of discrimination on grounds of age

Prigge and others v Deutsche Lufthansa AG: Court of Justice of the European Union (Grand Chamber) (Judges Skouris (President), Tizzano, Cunha Rodrigues, Lenaerts, Bonichot, Schiemann, Svaby (Presidents of the Chambers), Silva de Lapuerta, Juhasz, Lindh (Rapporteur), Berger, Prechal and Jarasiunas): 13 September 2011

The German referring court made a reference for a preliminary ruling to the Court of Justice of the European Union in proceedings between, on the one hand, the applicants and, on the other hand, their employer Deutsche Lufthansa AG concerning the automatic termination of their employment contracts at age 60 pursuant to a clause in a collective agreement.

The question was whether articles 2(5), 2(4) and/or 6(1), first sentence, of Council Directive (EC) 2000/78 (establishing a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation) (the directive) and/or the general Community-law principle which prohibited discrimination on grounds of age were to be interpreted as precluding rules of national law which recognised an age limit of 60 for pilots established by collective agreement for the purposes of air safety.

The Court ruled: Article 2(5) of the directive had to be interpreted as meaning that the member states might authorise, through rules, the social partners to adopt measures within the meaning of article 2(5) in the areas referred to in that provision that fell within collective agreements on condition that those rules of authorisation were sufficiently precise so as to ensure that those measures fulfilled the requirements set out in article 2(5).

A measure such as that at issue in the instant case, which fixed the age limit from which pilots might no longer carry out their professional activities at 60 whereas national and international legislation fixed that age at 65, was not a measure that was necessary for public security and protection of health, within the meaning of the said article 2(5).

Article 4(1) of the directive had to be interpreted as precluding a clause in a collective agreement, such as that at issue in the instant case, that fixed at 60 the age limit from which pilots were considered as no longer possessing the physical capabilities to carry out their professional activity while national and international legislation fixed that age at 65.

The first paragraph of article 6(1) of the directive had to be interpreted to the effect that air traffic safety did not constitute a legitimate aim within the meaning of that provision (see [83] of the judgment).