CELEX: 62008CO0217
Language: en
Date: 2009-03-17 00:00:00
Title: Order of the Court (Seventh Chamber) of 17 March 2009. # Rita Mariano v Istituto nazionale per l'assicurazione contro gli infortuni sul lavoro (INAIL). # Reference for a preliminary ruling: Tribunale ordinario di Milano - Italy. # Article 104(3) of the Rules of Procedure - Equal treatment in employment matters - Articles 12 EC and 13 EC - Grant of survivor’s benefit - National rules providing for differences in treatment between surviving spouses and surviving cohabitees. # Case C-217/08.

Order of the Court (Seventh Chamber) of 17 March 2009 – Mariano v Istituto nazionale per l’assicurazione contro gli infortuni
            sul lavoro
      (Case C‑217/08)
      Article 104(3) of the Rules of Procedure – Equal treatment in employment matters – Articles 12 EC and 13 EC – Grant of survivor’s benefit – National rules providing for differences in treatment between surviving spouses and surviving cohabitees
      1.                     European Union citizenship – Treaty provisions – Equal treatment – Discrimination on grounds of nationality – Not allowed
            – Substantive scope – Exclusion of purely internal situations (Arts 12 EC and 17 EC) (see paras 17-22)
      2.                     Community law – Principles – Equal treatment – Discrimination on grounds of age – Not allowed – Scope – Discriminatory treatment
            having no link with Community law – Excluded (Art. 13 EC; Council Directive 2000/78) (see paras 24-27)
      3.                     Community law – Principles – Equal treatment – Scope – National rules providing for differences in treatment between surviving
            spouses and surviving partners in awarding survivor’s benefit – Discriminatory treatment having no link with Community law
            – Excluded (Arts 12 EC and 13 EC; Council Directive 2000/78) (see paras 30-31)
      Re: 
      
         
               Reference for a preliminary ruling – Tribunale Ordinario di Milano (Italy) – Interpretation of Articles 12 EC and 13 EC –
                  Equal treatment in employment matters – Grant of survivor’s benefit – National rules providing for differences in treatment
                  between surviving spouses and surviving partners who were in a life partnership.
               
            Operative part
      Community law does not impose a prohibition of all discrimination, the application of which the courts of Member States must
         ensure, where the allegedly discriminatory treatment has no link with Community law. In circumstances such as those at issue
         in the main proceedings, no such link arises from Articles 12 EC and 13 EC in themselves.
      
      Those articles do not preclude, in those circumstances, national rules under which, in the event of the death of a person
         as a result of an accident, a pension amounting to 50% of the remuneration received by that person before his death is paid
         solely to his surviving spouse and the infant child of the deceased receives only a pension amounting to 20% of that remuneration.