Keywords

Summary



Keywords

Social security for migrant workers - Invalidity insurance - Calculation of benefits - Special detailed rules for the application of Netherlands legislation on insurance against incapacity for work - Where a worker has completed, in the Netherlands, periods of insurance under a special scheme for civil servants and was subsequently affected by incapacity for work in another Member State - Application for a pro rata benefit - Whether the competent institution is required to treat periods of insurance completed under the special scheme as if they were completed under the general scheme - No such obligation - Need to adopt coordination measures - Choice devolving on the Community legislature

(EC Treaty, Arts 48 and 51; Council Regulation No 1408/71, Annex VI, Section J, Point 4(a), and Council Regulation No 1606/98)

Summary

$$Point 4(a) of Section J of Annex VI to Regulation No 1408/71, as amended and updated by Regulation No 2001/83, as adapted by Annex I, Part VIII, to the Act concerning the Conditions of Accession of the Kingdom of Spain and the Portuguese Republic and the Adjustments to the Treaties, must be interpreted as not requiring the competent Netherlands institution - to which an application for a pro rata invalidity benefit has been made by a worker who has suffered an incapacity for work which arose in another Member State, the legislation of which makes the amounts of benefits depend on the length of the periods of insurance (Type B legislation) - to treat the periods of insurance completed by that worker in the Netherlands after 1 July 1967 under a special scheme for civil servants as if they were periods of insurance completed under the Wet op de Arbeidsongeschiktheidsverzekering of 18 February 1966, under which those amounts are independent of the length of periods of insurance (Type A legislation), even though, had the person concerned not exercised his right to freedom of movement as a worker and the incapacity for work had arisen in the Netherlands, those periods would have been so treated.

While it is true that, in order to safeguard the effective exercise of the right to freedom of movement enshrined in Article 48 of the Treaty, the Council is required, under Article 51 thereof, to set up a system to enable migrant workers to overcome obstacles with which they might be confronted through differences between national social security rules, and that, with regard to the special schemes for civil servants, the Community legislature discharged that obligation only when it adopted Regulation No 1606/98, it is none the less important to bear in mind, for the period before that regulation entered into force, that the Council enjoys a wide discretion in regard to the choice of the most appropriate measures for achieving the result envisaged in Article 51 of the Treaty.

Specifically, as regards the award of an invalidity benefit under a Member State's special scheme for civil servants, which exhibits the characteristics of Type A legislation, for an incapacity for work which arose in another Member State, in which Type B legislation applies generally to employed persons, it is essential to have recourse to coordination techniques regulating the relations between the national schemes in point, techniques which it is specifically for the Council to select, in accordance with Article 51 of the Treaty.