European Union – Employment. Article 1(1) of Directive (EC) 2001/23 should be interpreted as meaning that a situation where the successful tenderer for a service contract for the management of a municipal school of music, to which the municipal administration had supplied all the means necessary for the exercise of that activity, ceased that activity two months before the end of the current academic year, proceeding to dismiss the staff and returning those material resources to that municipal administration, which conducted a new tendering procedure solely for the following academic year and provided the new contractor with the same material resources, was capable of coming within the scope of that directive. The Court of Justice of the European Union so held, among other things, in a preliminary ruling in proceedings concerning the lawfulness of the applicant employee's dismissal under a collective dismissal procedure.