Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:1999:157
Date: 1999-03-18
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC;Anti-discrimination;Non-discrimination on grounds of nationality
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Germany

Summary of the Judgment 
1. Officials — Staff Regulations — Scope — Apportionment between divorced spouses of 
Community pension rights acquired by one of them — Not covered — Competence of 
the Member States 
2. Community law — Principles — Equal treatment — Discrimination on grounds of 
nationality — Prohibited — Scope of that prohibition — National provisions of 
private international law or national provisions of civil law substantively regulating the 
effects of a divorce — Not covered 
(EC Treaty, Art. 6 (now, after amendment, Art. 12 EC)) 
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SUMMARY — CASE C-430/97 
1. The Staff Regulations do not preclude 
the application, in proceedings between 
two former spouses, of national rules 
of law providing for the apportionment 
of pension rights between divorced 
spouses. 
The Community legislature has no 
competence to lay down the rights of 
spouses in divorce proceedings, these 
being governed by the rules of private 
law and family law applying in the 
Member States and falling within the 
competence of those Member States. 
Thus, the Staff Regulations are inten­
ded only to regulate the legal relations 
between the European institutions and 
their officials, by establishing a series 
of reciprocal rights and obligations and 
by affording certain members of an 
official's family rights which they may 
assert in relation to the European 
Communities. 
2. The prohibition, laid down by Article 6 
of the Treaty (now, after amendment, 
Article 12 EC), of all discrimination on 
grounds of nationality applies only 
within the Treaty's area of application. 
Neither the national provisions of pri­
vate international law determining the 
substantive national law applicable to 
the effects of a divorce nor the national 
provisions of civil law substantively 
regulating those effects fall within the 
scope of the Treaty. Accordingly, Arti­
cle 6 of the Treaty does not preclude 
the laws of a Member State regulating 
the consequences of divorce between 
an official of the Communities and his 
former spouse, regard being had to the 
spouses' nationality as a connecting 
factor, from causing the official con­
cerned to bear a heavier burden than 
would be borne by an official of a 
different nationality in the same situa­
tion. 
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