The reasonableness principle in the European Court of Justice age discrimination cases

In this essay we analyse the reasonableness principle in ECJ age discrimination cases, in the light of the principles of the European Directive 2000/78/CE, which undoubtedly represents a new season and an innovative step in European discrimination law. One of the innovative feature of the Directive 2000/78/EC is the fact that a discriminating factor like age, since represent a quality common to all, does not identify a minority group that should be protected and the decision making process which make reference to it is apparently objective. What is required by the Directive 2000/78/EC is then to verify if the decision-making criteria that appear objective are age-related, since these criteria have to be removed only if the purposes are illegitimate or if the consequences are disproportionate. The ECJ’s role is precisely to verify, through the use of the proportionality and reasonableness test, if an age-related criterion represent a discrimination or a legitimate different treatment. The aim of this paper is first of all to ascertain the role and functions of the reasonableness principle in discrimination cases on grounds of age and more precisely to verify how the European Court of Justice has used this principle in age discrimination case law. Beyond that we will verify how the reasonableness principle is used by the ECJ as a tool to enlarge EU competencies in employment policies.