Keywords

Summary



Keywords

1. Preliminary rulings - Jurisdiction of the Court - Limits - Manifestly irrelevant questions and questions regarding hypothetical problems in a context which precludes any useful answer - Questions not related to the purpose of the main proceedings

(Art. 234 EC)

2. Social security for migrant workers - Community rules - Replacing social security conventions concluded between Member States - Limit - Retention, solely in favour of workers who exercised their right to freedom of movement before the entry into force of Regulation No 1408/71 and before the Treaty became applicable in their State of origin, of the advantages previously provided by a combination of domestic law and the law of the relevant convention - Detailed rules

(Articles 48(2) and 51 of the EC Treaty (now, after amendment, Arts 39(2) EC and 42 EC); Council Regulation No 1408/71, Arts 6 and 7)

3. Freedom of movement for persons - Workers - Equal treatment - Rule in a Member State which, for the purposes of the criteria for entitlement to unemployment benefit, favours workers who have spent a certain period in that Member State - Incompatibility

(Art. 48 of the EC Treaty (now, after amendment, Art. 39 EC))

Summary

1. In the context of the cooperation between the Court of Justice and the national courts provided for by Article 234 EC, it is solely for the national court before which the dispute has been brought, and which must assume responsibility for the subsequent judicial decision, to determine in the light of the particular circumstances of the case both the need for a preliminary ruling in order to enable it to deliver judgment and the relevance of the questions which it submits to the Court. Consequently, where the questions submitted by the national court concern the interpretation of Community law, the Court of Justice is, in principle, bound to give a ruling.

However, in exceptional circumstances the Court of Justice can examine the conditions in which the case was referred to it by the national court, in order to determine whether it has jurisdiction. The Court may refuse to rule on a question referred for a preliminary ruling by a national court only where it is quite obvious that the interpretation of Community law that is sought bears no relation to the facts of the main action or its purpose, where the problem is hypothetical, or where the Court does not have before it the factual or legal material necessary to give a useful answer to the questions submitted to it.

( see paras 18-19 )

2. The principles laid down by the Court in Rönfeldt (Case C-277/89) permitting non-application of the provisions of Regulation No 1408/71 of the Council on the application of social security schemes to employed persons and their families moving within the Community, to allow for continued application of a bilateral convention which that regulation would otherwise have replaced to a worker who is a national of a Member State also apply where the worker exercised the right to freedom of movement before the regulation entered into force and before the Treaty became applicable in his Member State of origin.

If periods of insurance or employment that entitle a worker who is a national of a Member State to the unemployment benefit claimed by him began to run before the entry into force of Regulation No 1408/71, his situation must be assessed in the light of the provisions of the bilateral convention for the entire period during which he was exercising his right to freedom of movement, and taking into account all the periods of insurance or employment completed by him regardless of whether those periods preceded or succeeded the entry into force of the Treaty and of Regulation No 1408/71 in his Member State of origin. If, however, after having exhausted all his rights under the convention, he exercises his right to freedom of movement anew, and if he completes further periods of insurance or employment entirely after the entry into force of Regulation No 1408/71, his new situation is governed by that regulation.

( see paras 28, 35, operative part 1-2 )

3. National law may contain more favourable rules than Community law provided that they comply with the principles of Community law. A rule in a Member State which, for the purposes of the criteria for entitlement to unemployment benefit, favours workers who spent 15 years in that Member State before their last employment abroad is incompatible with Article 48 of the Treaty (now, after amendment, Article 39 EC).

( see para. 39, operative part 3 )