Held, (1) for the purposes of the application of Directive 2000/78, the terms “religion” and “belief” had to be analysed as two facets of the same single ground of discrimination. The ground of discrimination based on “religion or belief” was to be distinguished from the ground based on “political or any other opinion” and therefore covered both religious belief and philosophical or spiritual belief. Regarding the expression “whatever those beliefs may be” in the terms of employment, the protection against discrimination guaranteed in Directive 2000/78 covered only the grounds which were exhaustively listed in article 1, so that the Directive did not cover political or trade union belief; nor did it cover artistic, sporting, aesthetic or other beliefs or preferences. Accordingly, “religion or belief” in article 1 of Directive 2000/78 constituted a single ground of discrimination, covering both religious belief and philosophical or spiritual belief (judgment, paras 26–29, operative part, para 1).

(2) An employer’s desire to display, in relations with both public and private sector customers, a policy of political, philosophical or religious neutrality was, in principle, legitimate, in particular where the employer involved only those workers who were required to come into contact with customers. However, the mere desire of an employer to pursue a policy of neutrality—while in itself a legitimate aim—was not sufficient, as such, to justify objectively a difference in treatment indirectly based on religion or belief, since such a justification could be regarded as being objective only where there was a genuine need on the part of that employer, which was for that employer to demonstrate. Accordingly, article 2(2)(a) of Directive 2000/78 meant that a provision of an undertaking’s terms of employment which prohibited workers from manifesting, through words, clothing, or in any other way, their religious or philosophical beliefs, whatever those beliefs might be, did not constitute, with regard to workers who intended to exercise their freedom of religion and conscience through the visible wearing of a sign or an item of clothing with religious connotations, direct discrimination “on the [ground] of religion or belief” for the purposes of Directive 2000/78, provided that that provision was applied in a general and undifferentiated way (judgment, paras 39–40, 42, operative part, para 2).

(3) The objective of Directive 2000/78 supported an interpretation of article 2(1) and (2), whereby that Directive did not limit the circle of persons in relation to whom a comparison could be made in order to identify “discrimination on the [ground] of religion or belief” to those who did not have a particular religion or belief. Thus, the purpose of Directive 2000/78, as regards employment and occupation, was to combat all forms of discrimination based on religion or belief, it being understood that discrimination “on the [ground] of” religion or belief, for the purposes of the Directive, could not be said to occur unless the less favourable treatment or particular disadvantage was experienced as a result of the religion or belief. Accordingly, article 1 of Directive 2000/78 precluded provisions of national legislation, which were intended to ensure the transposition of that Directive into national law and which were construed as meaning that religious belief and philosophical belief constituted two separate grounds of discrimination, from being taken into account as “provisions which are more favourable to the protection of the principle of equal treatment than those laid down in [that Directive]” for the purposes of article 8(1) (judgment, paras 60–62, operative part, para 3).