Order — ECLI:EU:C:2003:89
Date: 2003-02-12
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: External relations;Social security for migrant workers
Concepts: The various agreements concluded by the Community
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Belgium

Summary of the Order 
International agreements — EEC-Morocco Cooperation Agreement — Moroccan 
workers employed in a Member State — Social security — Equal treatment — Refusal 
to grant to an unemployed Moroccan worker, on account of the lack of an international 
agreement providing that account is to be taken of work carried out in another Member 
State, a seniority supplement intended to increase unemployment benefit — Not 
permissible 
(EEC-Morocco Cooperation Agreement, Art. 41 (1)) 
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SUMMARY — CASE C-23/02 
On its proper construction, Article 41(1) of 
the Cooperation Agreement between the 
EEC and Morocco precludes a host 
Member State from refusing to grant a 
worker of Moroccan nationality resident in 
its territory the benefit of a seniority 
supplement increasing the basic amount of 
unemployment benefit on the sole ground 
that there is no international agreement 
providing that account is to be taken of 
work carried out by that worker in another 
Member State, even though no such con­
dition is imposed on workers who are 
nationals of that host Member State. 
Article 41(1), which has direct effect 
enabling the persons to whom it applies 
to rely on it in proceedings before national 
courts, lays down the principle of freedom 
from any discrimination based on national­
ity in the field of social security against 
Moroccan migrant workers and members 
of their family living with them in relation 
to nationals of the Member States in which 
they are or have been employed. That 
principle requires that persons falling 
within the scope of that article of the 
Agreement may claim social security bene­
fits under the same conditions as nationals 
of the host Member State without its being 
possible for the legislation of that Member 
State to impose upon those persons more or 
stricter conditions than those applicable to 
its nationals. Accordingly, the imposition 
on persons covered by Article 41(1) not 
only of the requirement that they must be 
nationals of the Member State concerned 
but also of any other condition which is not 
required in respect of nationals, such as a 
condition, laid down in national legislation 
on seniority supplements increasing the 
basic amount of unemployment benefit, 
which makes the taking into account of 
work carried out abroad subject to the 
existence of an international agreement 
only in respect of foreign or stateless 
workers, must be regarded as incompatible 
with that principle. 
(see paras 22, 30-33, 41, operative part) 
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