Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2001:47
Date: 2001-01-23
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Social security for migrant workers
Procedure: Action for failure to fulfil obligations - unfounded
Origin: Belgium

Summary of the Judgment 
Actions for failure to fulfil obligations — Proof of failure to fulfil obligations — Burden 
of proof on the Commission — Production of specific evidence indicative of failure — 
Absence 
(EC Treaty, Art. 169 (now Art. 226 EC); Council Regulation No 1408/71, Art. 13(2)(f)) 
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SUMMARY — CASE C-347/98 
In proceedings under Article 169 of the 
Treaty (now Article 226 EC) for failure to 
fulfil an obligation, it is incumbent upon 
the Commission to prove the allegation 
that the obligation has not been fulfilled 
and to place before the Court the informa­
tion needed to enable it to determine 
whether the obligation has not been ful­
filled. 
In that regard, by merely claiming, in its 
application, that a Member State failed to 
fulfil its obligations under Article 13(2)(f) 
of Regulation No 1408/71 on the applica­
tion of social security schemes to employed 
persons, to self-employed persons and to 
members of their families moving within 
the Community by levying contributions on 
pensions paid in that State in respect of an 
occupational disease where the persons 
receiving such pensions do not reside in 
that Member State and are no longer 
subject to its social security scheme, the 
Commission infers from that provision 
legal consequences which do not necessar­
ily flow from it. It considers it to be 
established that the conditions for applying 
that provision are fulfilled, although, in 
order to establish the merits of that pro­
position, it was required to prove that those 
conditions are in fact fulfilled in the present 
case, by specifying the concrete situations 
in which persons receiving pensions paid in 
that Member State in respect of an accident 
at work or an occupational disease are in 
fact no longer subject to the social security 
legislation of that Member State where they 
have their residence in the territory of 
another Member State. 
(see paras 38-39) 
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