European Union – Employment. The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled, amongst other things, that arts 2 and 6(1) of the Council Directive (EC) 2000/78, should be interpreted as precluding national legislation, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, which, to end discrimination based on age, took account of the periods of service prior to the age of 18, but which, simultaneously, included a rule, applicable in reality only to employees who were subject to that discrimination, which extended by one year the period required for advancement in each of the three first salary steps and which, in so doing, definitively maintained a difference in treatment based on age.