R.J. de Laat v Bestuur van het Landelijk instituut sociale verzekeringen.
Date: 2001-03-15
16 According to established case-law, the essential aim of the Regulation is to ensure that social security schemes governing workers in each Member State who move within the Community are applied in accordance with uniform Community criteria (see, in particular, Case 69/79 Jordens-Vosters [1980] ECR 75, paragraph 11).
17 Moreover, according to the Court, it follows from the provisions of Title II of the Regulation that the application of national social security legislation to a particular situation is determined by reference to criteria drawn from the rules of Community law. Although it is for the legislature of each Member State to lay down the conditions creating the right or the obligation to become affiliated to a social security scheme or to a particular branch of such a scheme, that does not mean that the Member States are entitled to determine the extent to which their own legislation or that of another Member State is applicable (see Case 276/81 Kuijpers [1982] ECR 3027, paragraph 14).
18 The answer to the first question must therefore be that in order to determine whether a frontier worker is to be regarded as partially unemployed or wholly unemployed within the meaning of Article 71(1)(a) of the Regulation, uniform Community criteria must be applied. That assessment may not be made on the basis of criteria drawn from national law.
31 It should be noted at the outset that the provisions of Title II of the Regulation, which include Article 13, constitute, as the Court has consistently held, a complete and uniform system of conflict rules the aim of which is to ensure that workers moving within the Community are subject to the social security scheme of only one Member State, in order to prevent the national legislation of more than one Member State from being applicable and to avoid the attendant complications of such a situation (see, in particular, Case C-202/97 FTS [2000] ECR I-883, paragraph 20, and Case C-404/98 Plum [2000] ECR I-9379, paragraph 18).
32 Also, as the Court has already stated (see Case 39/76 Mouthaan [1976] ECR 1901, paragraph 13; Case 227/81 Aubin [1982] ECR 1991, paragraph 12; and Case 1/85 Miethe [1986] ECR 1837, paragraph 16), Article 71 of the Regulation is intended to ensure that migrant workers receive unemployment benefit on the conditions most favourable to the search for new employment.
33 That being so, it must be acknowledged that, by laying down the rule that a wholly unemployed frontier worker coming within the definition set out in Article 1(b) of the Regulation is entitled to benefits solely in the Member State in which he resides, Article 71(1)(a)(ii) was based on the assumption that such a worker would find in that State the conditions most favourable to the search for new employment (see Miethe, cited above, paragraph 17).
34 However, the protection of workers which is the aim pursued by Article 71 of the Regulation would be enfeebled if a worker who, in a Member State other than the State of residence, remains employed by the same undertaking, but part-time, while remaining available for work on a full-time basis, were obliged to apply to an institution in his place of residence for help in finding additional work. The fact that he has passed from full-time employment to part-time employment by virtue of a new contract is in this respect irrelevant.
35 More specifically, the institution of the place of residence would be considerably less well placed as compared with its counterpart in the competent Member State to assist the worker in finding additional employment on terms and conditions compatible with his part-time job since, in all likelihood, such employment would have to be in the territory of the competent Member State.
36 It is only when a worker no longer has any link with the competent Member State and is wholly unemployed that he must apply to the institution of his place of residence for assistance in finding employment.