3.

However such an interpretation must I think be discarded, for three groups of reasons. The first point to be made is that, if the main purpose of the provision in question is in fact to make it easier for migrant workers to deal with foreign authorities, this in no way precludes the possibility that, even in dealings between workers and the authorities of their State of origin, it may fulfil other useful purposes in connexion with the needs and circumstances associated with migratory movements within the Community. An example which comes to mind is the situation of a worker who resides in a Member State other than that to which he belongs and to whose authorities he applies, which is the situation of the plaintiff in the main action. He might encounter serious difficulties in drawing up the application in the language laid down by the authority concerned, even though the latter is an agency of his own State, either because, having perhaps been away from his country of origin for a long time, he finds it more natural and convenient to express himself in the language of the country to which he has transferred and where he works (which would be even more likely in the case of the children of a worker in such circumstances) or because he is a national of a multilingual State and may always have had only a nodding acquaintance with the language prescribed in a particular region of his country of origin, while possessing a thorough knowledge of the language of the State in which he resides. In cases of this kind, the provision in question is undoubtedly a valuable means of safeguarding the rights of migrant workers in their relations with the authorities of the country of origin and thus continues to fulfil its essential purpose, which is to contribute to the effective realization of freedom for workers to move within the Community. Secondly, it must be borne in mind that the general tendency of the Community system, in particular of its directly applicable rules, is to establish a uniform system for all its citizens. For this reason it must in principle be possible for the rights which the system confers on individuals to be asserted against all the Member States, including the State to which they belong. An application of Community law which varies according to nationality would in certain circumstances be liable to place the foreigner in a privileged position as compared with the national. We can envisage circumstances similar to those in this case, for example, the case of a French worker who has held the same employment and gone to the same places as the applicant; she could certainly apply in French to the Antwerp court in order to claim her pension rights in connexion with work performed in that part of Belgium. A Belgian citizen would be subject to discrimination as regards Community law if she found herself in a situation which was substantially the same with respect to the circumstances which bring Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71 into operation (that is to say, she has been employed successively in Belgium and in France) and was not able to apply to the Antwerp court in the language which comes most easily to her. This does not mean that Community law is unconcerned with nationality. On the contrary, it is clear that many Community provisions, among them those of the regulation at issue, make enjoyment of the rights conferred on individuals subject to the possession of the nationality of one of the Member States, that is to say, they have a field of application to individuals which is restricted at least in principle on the basis of nationality. But, in terms of the Community legal order, nationality cannot in my view be allowed to act as a ground for restricting the rights of individuals by excluding or stultifying those rights as against the State to which the person belongs. Finally, there is a third group of reasons for rejecting the restrictive interpretation of Article 84 (4) to which I referred earlier. We must not lose sight of the fact that, in the interpretation of Community rules designed to secure workers' freedom of movement, the Court has shown what can best be described as a ‘social’ tendency marked by the choice, in case of doubt, of the most favourable interpretation for the worker. On this basis, which constitutes one of the most firmly established in its case-law, the Court has shown no reluctance to give a wide interpretation to those Community rules which benefit migrant workers, even when the consequence is to place them at an advantage compared with workers who spend the whole of their working life in one State (see the judgment of 10 November 1971 in Case 27/71, Keller [1971] ECR 885, especially at p. 891). In my view, it would ill accord with this tendency, which has on many occasions resulted in widening, to the advantage of migrant workers and members of their families, the literal meaning of Community legislation, if we were now to interpret Article 84 (4) of Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71 without regard to the literal meaning of Article 2, which designates the persons to whom the regulation applies, and, as a result of a narrow concept of the purpose of Article 84 (4), to draw the conclusion that it is not applicable to relationships between migrant workers and the authorities of the State of which they are nationals. I have no desire to underestimate the delicate nature of the language problem for many States, including more than one member country of the Community. However I do not think there is any real or serious risk of abuse of the Community rule in the sense that, in his dealings with the authorities of his own State, a migrant worker might find it easy to abuse the right accorded to him to employ one of the languages of the Community in place of the language laid down by the law of his own country. A . worker who makes an application to a public authority usually has an interest in receiving the reply he has asked for and accordingly will prefer to avoid complications and delays in translation, not to mention unwarranted refusals. It can therefore reasonably be expected that it will only be in a case of real difficulty that the worker will address himself to an administrative or judicial authority in a language other than that employed by the authority in accordance with its own law. It is therefore likely that the application of Article 84 (4) will remain very intermittent as between the States and their nationals. Furthermore, as regards the practical difficulties which may be created for the State authorities by the receipt of applications or documents in foreign languages, it must be borne in mind that Article 81 (b) of Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71 confers on those authorities the right to ask the Administrative Commission provided for under Article 80 et seq. to carry out any necessary translations of documents relating to the implementation of the regulation. In my opinion therefore there is no valid ground, either in theory or in practice, for denying that the rule in question applies in dealings with the State of which the worker is a national.