Article 158 [Paid Holiday Schemes]

Article 158 TFEU repeats in an identical manner the wordings of ex-Article 142 TEC and ex-Article 119a TEEC and establishes the maintenance of any pre-existing national systems relating to paid holiday schemes. The content of the provision has remained static since 1957 when it was introduced for the purpose of safeguarding the French concerns about social dumping that could result from diverging systems and especially from national systems offering a lower standard of protection for workers, thus being in a position to attract capital and to gain a competitive advantage. Therefore, the inception of the wording pursued two objectives of ‘interventionist Member States’: (a) the greater harmonisation through the protection of already granted benefits under national law in order to permanently entrench the social policy choices contained therein, and, (b) the prevention of a distortion in competition. The key in understanding the historical background of the provision is the existence of French legislation entitling workers to longer paid leave than other MS.