Chacón Navas v Eurest Colectividades SA (2006) C-13/05 is an EU labour law case that sets forth a uniform definition of disability in the European Union. Both the Treaty of Amsterdam and the EU Framework Directive on Employment left open the definition of disability, which allowed the Court to adopt its own definition. The judgment has been criticised by academics as potentially being too close to a medical model of disability (although it does not require medical diagnosis of a disability), rather than the social model of disability. Facts Ms Navas, an employee of a catering company, was sick and waiting for an operation. The ECJ decision does not contain any detail about what illness prevented her from working for eight months. After eight months her employers wrote to her purporting to end her employment. In the letter they admitted that the termination was 'unlawful' (Spanish industrial law allows unlawful termination with financial compensation). She claimed that the termination was instead 'void' and sought reinstatement according to anti-discrimination provisions. She made her claim to the Spanish Courts under the disability provisions of Spanish law, which were in turn based on the EU Framework Equality Directive 2000/78/EC. Judgment Domestic courts The domestic Spanish labour courts agreed with Ms Navas' employers that illness did not amount to 'disability', which was the subject of the EU directive and that Spanish law allowed Eurest to fire Navas based on their cost benefit analysis (i.e. financial compensation versus continuing to employ her). This interpretation allows employers to discriminate against sick people, as opposed to people with disability. Advocate General Advocate General Ad Geelhoed issued an opinion based on a medical model of disability. He also stated that an "autonomous and uniform" Community meaning should be given to "disability". He said disability is tied to the concept of a permanent limitation on activities, and while acknowledging that disability could arise from sickness, sickness was a separate concept that did not mean disability. He found that sickness by itself is not enough to trigger protection under the Directive. This reasoning was adopted by the European Court of Justice (ECJ). European Court of Justice The ECJ started with Article 136 TEC, which states that the Community exists with "a view to lasting high employment and the combating of exclusion." It referred to the mention of disability in the Community Charter of the Fundamental Social Rights of Workers, para