so in the previous lesson what we had done is spend some time talking about State liability we took this view that state liability fundamentally represents something of the final Port of Call for circumstances in which an individual a citizen of the European Union wants to see their rights under European Union law enforced we introduced what state liability was as well as the first case which exemplifies the view of State liability this being the case of franovich this lesson is going to talk about the conditions for State liability again referencing the case of franovich because in franovich they talk about what the major conditions are to establish an instance of State liability which is what this video is going to entail we're continuing our discussion of State liability as I said looking at the main conditions of it U this is a continuation of the discussion of the franovich case that we had in the previous lesson fundamentally if we're talking about State liability we are going to have to be focusing quite significantly on the case of franovich so what are the conditions for State liability what are the requirements that needed to be uh present in the existence of a particular provision or a breach of a provision in order for that to meet and to satisfy the conditions of State liability well with reference to the case of franovich State liability is established where the following conditions are found the directive in question that is the at issue fundamentally should have a resort which entails the granting of rights to individual EU citizens that's the first condition remember when we talk about the conditions of State liability and we talk about the idea of State liability it is fundamentally going to be the case that state liability applies almost entirely for the most part to EU directives because that's where there is a pitfall in the regulation of direct effect and indirect effect when it comes to the application to directives so with that being uh with that in mind we have to make it clear that we're talking about directives here so the conditions for State liability okay the first one the directive in question should have a result which entails the granting of rights to individual EU citizens remember an EU directive is not binding in terms of its content necessarily but it is binding as to the results to be achieved it fundamentally tells us that right we have a a thing that we want to achieve whether it be working time directive or whether it be something like uh equal rights protections and employment rights for example uh this is the result to be achieved and it is up to the member states that it is applying to to make a decision as to how they are going to implement it within the implementation period so the directive in question entails granting of Rights the second condition is that those rights that the directive is going to Grant should be identifiable rights we should be able to be able to clearly delineate which rights we're talking about they have to be clearly and easily understood to be the rights in question and then finally there will have to be a causal connection between the breach of the state's obligations and the damage which is suffered by the claimant in any case for the most part or for the most in most cases should I say when we're talking about some kind of harm that is suffered some kind of damage that is suffered to a claimant whether we're talking about contracts or whether we're talking about the law of T we are thinking about this idea of causation it is imperative that we can identify where the cause of the damage was because if the cause that was suffered by the claim was not that of the breach on the part of the states well then you can't really claim that the state is reliable in for for damages and liable for remedy of those particular conditions a useful illustration of this is the case of the the the third Factor tame case as well as the brasserie case from 1996 the reason why these these two sort of come together is because they fundamentally represent um similar things okay uh they they the facts are very different but they represent similar issues it was a combined case uh on the one hand when we think about the factor tame cases um there are a few with depending on which area of law we're talking about if we're doing constitutional law we may also think about the fact of tame case um these are cases that inv involve Spanish fishermen the brasserie case involves German Brewers they had both sought to get compensation from their respective governments I.E Spain and Germany uh for alleged breaches of European Union law the Court held that in developing the law from the previous case developing the law from franovich where there are breaches of EU law that concern legislation with with wide discretion the conditions of State liability will include the following the EU law confers rights to EU citizens the breach was sufficiently serious and that there is a causation from one side to the other from one action to the damage that is suffered so what do these cases do well they add an additional element to State liability now we're not just talking about rights which are identifiable and that there is causation we're talking about that there is a conferrence of Rights on EU citizens it is implied that these are identifiable rights still and then secondly that the breaching question was quote sufficiently serious this is a a different test this is an additional test that we have to apply to EU law now what is the test that constitutes sufficiently serious and then the final point of course is just the the the idea of causation well let's finish by thinking about what actually is meant by the idea of sufficiently serious this is a new addition to the to the test well according to this case the test for what constitutes sufficiently serious in terms of breaches um concerned situations where the member State quote had manifestly and Gravely disregarded the limits on its discretion so it does not satisfy the qualification of sufficiently serious to just say for example that there was a breach of EU law um but this breach of EU law law was within the broader discretion of the member states okay remember EU directives give member states quite a lot of discretion in terms of uh in terms of what constitutes a um and what constitutes how they Implement particular Provisions so that is not enough to qualify to be sufficiently serious instead the test that we apply is this idea of a situation where a member state had manifestly and Gravely disregarded the limits on its discretion and this is what constitutes sufficiently serious for the conditions of State liability