Luxembourg, 07/09/2006 (Agence Europe) - The European Court of Justice has announced that the United Kingdom guidelines on working time infringe Community law: 'the guidelines are liable to render the right of workers to daily and weekly rest periods meaningless because they do not oblige employers to ensure that workers actually take the minimum rest periods.' The guidelines in question were published by the Department of Trade and Industry to help people understand the Working Time Regulations 1998 (WTR), which transposes into UK law the European Working Time Directive of 1993. The Court of Justice explains: 'By proving that employers must merely give workers the opportunity to take the minimum rest periods provided for, without obliging them to ensure that those periods are actually taken, the guidelines are clearly liable to render the rights enshrined in the Directive meaningless and are incompatible with its objective.' The purpose of the Working Time Directive, explains the Court, is 'to lay down minimum requirements to improve the living and working conditions of workers by ensuring that the4y are entitled to minimum rest periods… A Member State which indicates that an employer is not required to ensure that workers actually exercise such rights does not guarantee compliance with either the Directive's minimum requirements or its essential objective.'