European Union – Employment. The Court of Justice of the European Union gave a preliminary ruling, deciding, among other things, that cl 5(1) of the framework agreement on fixed-term work, concluded on 18 March 1999, set out in the annex to Council Directive (EC) No 1999/70, should be interpreted as precluding national legislation, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, from being applied by the national courts of the member state concerned in such a manner that, in the event of abuse resulting from the use of successive fixed-term employment contracts, a right to maintain the employment relationship was granted to persons employed by the authorities under an employment contract governed by the rules of employment law, but that right was not conferred, in general, on staff employed by those authorities under administrative law unless there was another effective measure in the national law to penalise such abuse with regard to the latter staff, which it was for the national court to determine.