UB v Generálny riaditeľ Sociálnej poisťovne Bratislava.
Date: 2019-12-18
22


In that regard, it should be borne in mind that, according to the settled case-law of the Court, the distinction between benefits falling within the scope of Regulation No 883/2004 and those which are outside it is based essentially on the constituent elements of each benefit, in particular its purpose and the conditions for its grant, and not on whether it is classified as a social security benefit by national legislation (judgment of 25 July 2018, A (Assistance for a disabled person), C‑679/16, EU:C:2018:601, paragraph 31 and the case-law cited).
23


Thus, a benefit may be regarded as a social security benefit in so far as it is granted, without any individual and discretionary assessment of personal needs, to recipients on the basis of a legally defined position and provided that it relates to one of the risks expressly listed in Article 3(1) of Regulation No 883/2004 (judgment of 25 July 2018, A (Assistance for a disabled person), C‑679/16, EU:C:2018:601, paragraph 32 and the case-law cited).
24


Given that the two conditions mentioned in the preceding paragraph are cumulative, the fact that one of them is not satisfied will mean that the benefit in question does not fall within the scope of Regulation No 883/2004 (judgment of 25 July 2018, A (Assistance for a disabled person), C‑679/16, EU:C:2018:601, paragraph 33).
26


As regards, in particular, the classification of a social benefit as an old-age benefit as referred to in Article 3(1)(d) of that regulation, the Court has specified that a supplementary allowance paid exclusively to persons entitled to a retirement and/or survivor’s pension and financed by the same resources that are used to finance the retirement and survivor’s pensions which is linked to the retirement pension, providing the recipients with means of subsistence by ensuring that they receive a financial supplement, may be classified as such a benefit (see, to that effect, judgments of 20 January 2005, Noteboom, C‑101/04, EU:C:2005:51, paragraphs 25 to 29, and of 16 September 2015, Commission v Slovakia, C‑361/13, EU:C:2015:601, paragraph 56).
35


That being said, it should be borne in mind that, in the context of the procedure established by Article 267 TFEU providing for cooperation between national courts and the Court of Justice, it is for the latter to provide the national court with an answer which will be of use to it and enable it to determine the case before it. To that end, the Court may have to reformulate the questions referred to it. Moreover, the Court has a duty to interpret all provisions of EU law which national courts require in order to decide the actions pending before them, even if those provisions are not expressly indicated in the questions referred to the Court of Justice by those courts. To that end, the Court may extract from all the information provided by the national court, in particular from the grounds of the decision to make the reference, the legislation and the principles of EU law that require interpretation in view of the subject matter of the dispute in the main proceedings (judgment of 16 July 2015, Abcur, C‑544/13 and C‑545/13, EU:C:2015:481, paragraphs 33 and 34 and the case-law cited).
38


Article 45(2) TFEU provides that freedom of movement for workers is to entail the abolition of any discrimination based on nationality as regards employment, remuneration and other conditions of work and employment (judgment of 15 December 2016, Depesme and Others, C‑401/15 to C‑403/15, EU:C:2016:955, paragraph 34 and the case-law cited).
39


In addition, Article 7(2) of Regulation No 492/2011 is the particular expression, in the specific area of the grant of social advantages, of the principle of equal treatment enshrined in Article 45(2) TFEU, and must be accorded the same interpretation as that provision (judgment of 15 December 2016, Depesme and Others, C‑401/15 to C‑403/15, EU:C:2016:955, paragraph 35 and the case-law cited).
41


The Court has held that that provision equally benefits both migrant workers resident in a host Member State and frontier workers employed in that Member State while residing in another Member State (judgments of 15 December 2016, Depesme and Others, C‑401/15 to C‑403/15, EU:C:2016:955, paragraph 37, and of 10 July 2019, Aubriet, C‑410/18, EU:C:2019:582, paragraph 24).
42


Similarly, the Court has held that a worker who was carrying on an activity as an employed person in his or her host Member State at the time of the accession of his or her Member State of origin to the European Union and has continued to carry on such activity after that accession may, from the date of accession, rely on Article 7(2) of Regulation (EEC) No 1612/68 of the Council of 15 October 1968 on freedom of movement for workers within the Community (OJ 1968 L 257, p. 2), the wording of which has been reproduced in Article 7(2) of Regulation No 492/2011, unless the transitional arrangements provided for in the Act of Accession provide otherwise (see, to that effect, judgment of 27 September 1989, Lopes da Veiga, 9/88, EU:C:1989:346, paragraphs 9, 10 and 19).
43


In that regard, since the accession of the Slovak Republic and the Czech Republic to the European Union on 1 May 2004, freedom of movement for workers fully applies, in principle, to Czech nationals working in Slovakia, pursuant to Article 24 of the Act concerning the conditions of accession of the Czech Republic, the Republic of Estonia, the Republic of Cyprus, the Republic of Latvia, the Republic of Lithuania, the Republic of Hungary, the Republic of Malta, the Republic of Poland, the Republic of Slovenia and the Slovak Republic and the adjustments to the Treaties on which the European Union is founded (OJ 2003 L 236, p. 33), and point 1.1 of Annex V thereto, subject only to the transitional provisions laid down in points 1.2 to 1.14 of that annex. As Article 7(2) of Regulation No 1612/68 is not covered by such transitional provisions, that provision applies with regard to those Czech nationals as from 1 May 2004 (see, by analogy, judgment of 27 September 1989, Lopes da Veiga, 9/88, EU:C:1989:346, paragraph 9).
46


In that regard, the reference made by that provision to ‘social … advantages’ cannot be interpreted restrictively (see, to that effect, judgments of 30 September 1975, Cristini, 32/75, EU:C:1975:120, paragraph 12, and of 17 April 1986, Reed, 59/85, EU:C:1986:157, paragraph 25).
47


Indeed, the purpose of Article 7(2) of Regulation No 492/2011 is to achieve equal treatment, and therefore the concept of a ‘social advantage’, extended by that provision to workers who are nationals of other Member States, must include all advantages which, whether or not linked to a contract of employment, are generally granted to national workers primarily because of their objective status as workers or by virtue of the mere fact of their residence on the national territory and the extension of which to workers who are nationals of other Member States therefore seems suitable to facilitate their mobility within the Union (see, to that effect, judgments of 17 April 1986, Reed, 59/85, EU:C:1986:157, paragraph 26; of 12 May 1998, Martínez Sala, C‑85/96, EU:C:1998:217, paragraph 25; and of 15 September 2005, Ioannidis, C‑258/04, EU:C:2005:559, paragraph 35) and, consequently, their integration into the host Member State.
48


As the Court has already held, such advantages include, inter alia, an unemployment benefit aimed at young people who have just completed their studies and are seeking their first employment (see, to that effect, judgment of 15 September 2005, Ioannidis, C‑258/04, EU:C:2005:559, paragraph 34), a child-raising allowance for a worker’s child (see, to that effect, judgment of 12 May 1998, Martínez Sala, C‑85/96, EU:C:1998:217, paragraph 26), the possibility, for the widow and infant children of a migrant worker, of benefiting from the reductions in rail fares applicable to large families (see, to that effect, judgment of 30 September 1975, Cristini, 32/75, EU:C:1975:120, paragraph 13), the possibility, for an accused person who has worker status, of using one of the languages available to the residents of a municipality of the host Member State (see, to that effect, judgment of 11 July 1985, Mutsch,137/84, EU:C:1985:335, paragraphs 16 and 17), or the possibility of obtaining permission for a worker’s unmarried partner, who is not a national of the host Member State, to reside in that State with that worker (see, to that effect, judgment of 17 April 1986, Reed, 59/85, EU:C:1986:157, paragraph 28), because all those measures may contribute to the integration of the migrant worker into the host country and thus to achieving the objective of freedom of movement for workers.
52


However, the purpose of the additional benefit at issue in the main proceedings is to compensate high-level sportspersons who have represented the host Member State or its legal predecessors in international sporting competitions and have obtained remarkable results. In particular, that additional benefit has the effect not only of providing its recipients with financial security intended, inter alia, to compensate for the fact that they were unable to fully integrate into the labour market during the years dedicated to practising a sport at a high level, but also, chiefly, of conferring on those recipients a particular level of social prestige because of the sporting results which they obtained in the context of that representation. The fact, for migrant workers, of benefiting from that level of prestige, which is also available to nationals of the host Member State who are in the same situation, or have even obtained medals as part of the same team in team sports competitions, is capable of facilitating the integration of those migrant workers into the society of that Member State. Moreover, the Court has previously recognised the considerable social importance of sport in the European Union, in particular amateur sport, as reflected in Article 165 TFEU, and the role of that sport as a factor for integration into the society of the host Member State (see, to that effect, judgment of 13 June 2019, TopFit and Biffi, C‑22/18, EU:C:2019:497, paragraph 33).