3.

In the course of the procedure before the Court, written observations were submitted by the Netherlands Government, the Verzekeringsbank and the Commission of the European Communities. At an early stage of the proceedings, the Court asked the parties to state whether Mr and Mrs De Jong, after their departure for Italy, could have avoided the reduction of their pension by any method which did not involve continued residence in the Netherlands. Let me say first that the reply to the Court's question should be in the affirmative. It is worth pointing out in limine that the Court has decided that the sole objective of Regulation No 1408/71 ‘is to coordinate the national legal systems of social security’ so that migrant workers will not lose the benefits provided for under those schemes by virtue of their mobility, whereas it is for the legislatures of the Member States to lay down conditions for affiliation to a national social security scheme (judgment of 12 July 1979 in Case 266/78, Brunoriv Landesversicherungsanstalt Rhein-Provinz [1979] ECR 2705; judgment of 24 April 1980 in Case 110/79, Coonan v Insurance Officer [1980] ECR 1445; judgment of 23 September 1982 in Case 276/81, Sociale Verzekeringsbank v Kuypers [1982] ECR 3027). The provisions of Point 2 (a), (c) and (f) must be interpreted in the light of those principles. As I pointed out in my Opinion in the Spruyt case, Point 2 (a) and (f) extend the benefit of the transitional rules laid down in the Old-Age Law to workers who leave the Netherlands before reaching their 65th birthday on condition that they resided and worked in the Netherlands after the age of 15 and before the entry into force of the national legislation (1 January 1957). On the other hand, Point 2 (c) is designed to avoid the consequences of the reduction in the married man's pension which may be made under Article 10 of the Old-Age Law. It provides that the wife is entitled to have considered as insurance periods the years following the marriage and preceding 1 January 1957 during which she remained in her own country and while her husband was working in the Netherlands, and was therefore not insured within the meaning of the Old-Age Law. It seems to me that that explanation affords sufficient justification for the conclusion that the argument advanced by Mr De Jong, to the effect that the periods referred to in Point 2 (c) must also be regarded as insurance periods for the purposes of the Old-Age Law, exceeds the limits of the coordination which Community law seeks to achieve and introduces conditions for affiliation which are not provided for in Netherlands law. During the period in question, Mrs De Jong had no connection with the Netherlands; she did not reside there, she did not work there, she was not married to a person working in that country. In fact, the result of that argument is, paradoxically, to confer upon a woman on the occasion of her marriage greater advantages than those enjoyed by an unmarried worker whose situation is otherwise identical, even though it is true that the latter may, according to Point 2 (a), have periods before 1 January 1957 taken into account as insurance periods, but only if he actually resided in the Netherlands during those periods. However, that was not the result which the Community legislature sought to achieve when it adopted the rule contained in Point 2 (c) for the benefit of married women, supplementing the provisions of the Old-Age Law. As we have seen, the sole purpose of that rule is to prevent the husband's pension from being reduced and thus to protect workers who move to the Netherlands after their marriage without taking their wife with them. Such are the bonds of marriage, it might be said; but such is also the additional protection afforded by the principle laid down in Article 48 of the EEC Treaty, in this case, vis-ä-vis the Netherlands legislation. It is true that the application of that legislation causes Mr De Jong to lose 15% of his pension. However, as the Verzekeringsbank explained in its reply to the Court's question, it is possible under the Netherlands system for the persons concerned to continue to benefit from the transitional provisions by taking out voluntary insurance. Mrs De Jong can still do that and the amount of the premiums that she would be required to pay would be the same as the contributions which she would have to pay under the compulsory insurance scheme to obtain the same benefit. That being so, the transitional provisions contained in the Old-Age Law cannot be said to obstruct the free movement of workers within the Community.