The missing fundamental rights protection in the CJEU's case C-948/19 UAB "Manpower Lit"

This case deals with two legal issues concerning Directive 2008/104/EC. The first issue concerns the interpretation of the scope of the Directive in relations to an EU agency, i.e. the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE). Thereto the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) had to establish whether such an agency fulfils the three requirements of Article 1(2) Directive 2008/104/EC: EIGE must fall within the definition of "public undertaking"; be a "user undertaking"; and must be engaged with "economic activities." Following the EU's autonomous interpretations of these three requirements, the Court concluded positive on all three of them. The second legal issue deals with the question whether the principle of administrative autonomy of an EU agency as laid down in Article 335 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) will be hindered when temporary agency workers are treated equally in terms of their basic working and employment conditions (Article 5(1) Directive 2008/104/EC) as those workers who are directly employed by the EU agency. The CJEU's conclusion is that such is not the case, since 1) the comparison is to be made at the level of the tasks of the job, and 2) the workers did not claim full equal treatment, but equal treatment on wages which is covered as a basic working condition by Directive 2008/104/EC).