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In a reference for a preliminary ruling in which the grounds are set out in an exemplary manner, the Bundessozialgericht [Federal Social Court] has asked the Court of Justice to interpret Article 71 of Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71 on the application of social security schemes to employed persons, to self-employed persons and to members of their families moving within the Community. That article provides as follows : ‘(1) An unemployed person who was formerly employed and who, during his last employment, was residing in the territory of a Member State other than the competent State shall receive benefits in accordance with the following provisions : (a) (i) a frontier worker who is partially or intermittently unemployed in the undertaking which employs him, shall receive benefits in accordance with the provisions of the legislation of the competent State as if he were residing in the territory of that State; these benefits shall be provided by the competent institution; (ii) a frontier worker who is wholly unemployed shall receive benefits in accordance with the provisions of the legislation of the Member State in whose territory he resides as though he had been subject to that legislation while last employed; these benefits shall be provided by the institution of the place of residence at its own expense; (b) (i) an employed person, other than a frontier worker, who is partially, intermittently or wholly unemployed and who remains available to his employer or to the employment services in the territory of the competent State shall receive benefits in accordance with the provisions of the legislation of that State as though he were residing in its territory; these benefits shall be provided by the competent institution; (ii) an employed person, other than a frontier worker, who is wholly unemployed and who makes himself available for work to the employment services in the territory of the Member State in which he resides, or who returns to that territory, shall receive benefits in accordance with the legislation of that State as if he had last been employed there; the institution of the place of residence shall provide such benefits at its own expense. However, if such an employed person has become entitled to benefits at the expense of the competent institution of the Member State to whose legislation he was last subject, he shall receive benefits under the provisions of Article 69. Receipt of benefits under the legislation of the State in which he resides shall be suspended for any period during which the unemployed person may, under the provisions of Article 69, make a claim for benefits under the legislation to which he was last subject. (2) An unemployed person may not claim benefits under the legislation of the Member State in whose territory he resides while he is entitled to benefits under the provisions of paragraph 1 (a) (i) or (b) (i).’ The interpretation is being sought in connection with the following facts. The plaintiff and respondent in the main proceedings, a German national who was educated in Germany and who has never worked outside that country, was employed from November 1975 to September 1979 as a sales representative in the Aachen area by a German company and thus paid contributions to the German unemployment insurance scheme. In November 1976 the plaintiff, who until then had always lived in Germany, moved to Belgium for the sole purpose of enabling his children, who were at a Belgian college, to travel daily to school from their parents' home. The plaintiff registered his and his wife's departure from Germany and their arrival in Belgium with the police. From the end of 1976, the plaintiff also had an office at his mother-in-law's home in Aachen. There was also a divan bed and a spare room for him in that apartment. He generally made use of those facilities once or twice a week. Later, after he became unemployed in the autumn of 1979 and was seeking work in Germany, he made more frequent use of them. He was also able to share the use of the telephone in the apartment, and could always be reached there. At the end of 1977 the plaintiff once again registered with the German police in order to obtain a commercial traveller's licence. When his employment with a German company came to an end, the plaintiff, on 3 October 1979, registered as unemployed at the Arbeitsamt [Employment Office] in Aachen and claimed unemployment benefits (but did not register at the employment office in Belgium and did not claim any benefits there). Payment of unemployment benefits was initially refused in Germany on the ground that the plaintiff did not have his residence or habitual abode there. The objection lodged by the plaintiff against that decision was dismissed, as was his appeal to the Sozialgericht [Social Court] Aachen. However, the Landessozialgericht [Higher Social Court] awarded the plaintiff German unemployment benefits as from October 1979. It held that the conditions laid down in Paragraph 100 of the German Arbeitsförderungsgesetz [Law to Promote Employment] had been satisfied at the date on which the plaintiff submitted his claim because he had made himself available for work to the employment services and, although resident in Belgium, had his habitual abode in Germany. The Landessozialgericht also stated that although the plaintiff was entitled to claim benefits from the Belgian insurance institution under Article 71 (1) (a) (ii), that did not mean that German law could not apply to his case. The Bundesanstalt für Arbeit [Federal Employment Office] does not agree with that interpretation. It considers that under the aforementioned provision, which is applicable in this case, benefits may be claimed only in the State of residence and that no claim for benefits lies under German law. In particular, no right to choose where to draw benefits, such as is granted to the class of persons mentioned in Article 71 (1) (b), exists in this case. The Bundesanstalt therefore appealed to the Bundessozialgericht against the decision of the Landessozialgericht. The Bundessozialgericht decided first of all that the plaintiff (who had found employment again as from 1 August 1980) satisfied the conditions for claiming benefits laid down in German law because he had a habitual abode in Germany. It then turned its attention to Article 71 of Regulation No 1408/71. It explained in the first place that Germany should be regarded as the ‘competent State’ within the meaning of Article 71 (in conjunction with Article 1 (q)) because the plaintiff was required to pay contributions in Germany under Article 13 of Regulation No 1408/71 and the Bundesanstalt was therefore the competent institution. Secondly, it pointed out in that regard, with reference to the definition of the terms ‘residence’ and ‘frontier worker’ in Article 1 (h) and (b), that the plaintiff was a frontier worker resident in Belgium and could therefore claim benefits from the Belgian institution because he exhibited the characteristics set out in Article 71 (1) (a) (ii). That was tied to the question whether Article 71 was actually to be interpreted as meaning that benefits may be claimed only from the competent institution of the State of residence even where a claim already lies under the national law of the State in which the claimant was employed. A further question which arose was whether the exclusion of entitlement to benefits in the State of employment (if that is what Article 71 actually means) also applied in the case of an atypical frontier worker such as the plaintiff (who had a special connection with the State in which he was employed and who transferred his residence to another country solely for family reasons), or whether in such a case it was more appropriate to apply Article 71 (1) (b) (i). Since the national court considered itself unable to give an unequivocal answer to those questions, it stayed the proceedings by order of 25 October 1984 and referred the following questions to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling: ‘(1) Does Article 71 (1) (a) (ii) of Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71, which provides that the institution responsible for paying benefits to a frontier worker who is wholly unemployed is to be the institution of his place of residence, mean that benefits may not be claimed from the competent institution of the place where he was last employed, even if he is entitled to them under the legislation of that State despite his residence abroad, in particular because the unemployed frontier worker is available to the employment services of that State? (2) If so: (a) Does the institution of the place of residence still retain exclusive competence under Article 71 (1) (a) (ii) of Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71 even if the frontier worker: has hitherto worked only in the State in which he was last employed, of which he is a national, and was also resident there until a few years ago; maintains an office at the place of his last employment, which he used during his employment and uses in seeking employment whilst unemployed, which he has done only in that State; besides his office, has sleeping facilities which he regularly used once or twice a week when employed and which he uses even more often while seeking employment; during his absence from the office, is kept informed by another person by telephone of inquiries from clients or from the Arbeitsamt [Employment Office]; from both the office and his apartment close to the frontier, maintains his business and private contacts only in the State in which he was last employed, and all his friends and acquaintances are also in that State? (b) Is it possible for Article 71 (1) (b) (i) of Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71 to be applied by analogy to such an “atypical” frontier worker?’