Press Release: Opinions of the Advocate General in Cases C-619/16 Sebastian W. Kreuziger v Land Berlin and C-684/16 Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften eV v Tetsuji Shimizu

Advocate General Bot proposes that the Court of Justice should hold that the mere fact that a worker did not apply for leave cannot automatically entail the loss of the right to an allowance in lieu of untaken leave at the end of the employment relationship.

However, where the employer shows that he took the necessary steps to enable workers to exercise their right to paid annual leave and, in spite of the measures taken, the worker deliberately declined to exercise that right even though he was able to do so during the employment relationship, that worker cannot claim the allowance.