Rudy Grzelczyk v Centre public d'aide sociale d'Ottignies-Louvain-la-Neuve.
Date: 2001-09-20
30 Within the sphere of application of the Treaty, such discrimination is, in principle, prohibited by Article 6. In the present case, Article 6 must be read in conjunction with the provisions of the Treaty concerning citizenship of the Union in order to determine its sphere of application.
31 Union citizenship is destined to be the fundamental status of nationals of the Member States, enabling those who find themselves in the same situation to enjoy the same treatment in law irrespective of their nationality, subject to such exceptions as are expressly provided for.
32 As the Court held in paragraph 63 of its judgment in Martínez Sala, cited above, a citizen of the European Union, lawfully resident in the territory of a host Member State, can rely on Article 6 of the Treaty in all situations which fall within the scope ratione materiae of Community law.
33 Those situations include those involving the exercise of the fundamental freedoms guaranteed by the Treaty and those involving the exercise of the right to move and reside freely in another Member State, as conferred by Article 8a of the Treaty (see Case C-274/96 Bickel and Franz [1998] ECR I-7637, paragraphs 15 and 16).
34 It is true that, in paragraph 18 of its judgment in Case 197/86 Brown [1988] ECR 3205, the Court held that, at that stage in the development of Community law, assistance given to students for maintenance and training fell in principle outside the scope of the EEC Treaty for the purposes of Article 7 thereof (later Article 6 of the EC Treaty).
35 However, since Brown, the Treaty on European Union has introduced citizenship of the European Union into the EC Treaty and added to Title VIII of Part Three a new chapter 3 devoted to education and vocational training. There is nothing in the amended text of the Treaty to suggest that students who are citizens of the Union, when they move to another Member State to study there, lose the rights which the Treaty confers on citizens of the Union. Furthermore, since Brown, the Council has also adopted Directive 93/96, which provides that the Member States must grant right of residence to student nationals of a Member State who satisfy certain requirements.
39 Article 3 of Directive 93/96 makes clear that the directive does not establish any right to payment of maintenance grants by the host Member State for students who benefit from the right of residence. On the other hand, there are no provisions in the directive that preclude those to whom it applies from receiving social security benefits.
40 As regards more specifically the question of resources, Article 1 of Directive 93/96 does not require resources of any specific amount, nor that they be evidenced by specific documents. The article refers merely to a declaration, or such alternative means as are at least equivalent, which enables the student to satisfy the national authority concerned that he has, for himself and, in relevant cases, for his spouse and dependent children, sufficient resources to avoid becoming a burden on the social assistance system of the host Member State during their stay (see paragraph 44 of the judgment in Case C-424/98 Commission v Italy [2000] ECR I-4001).
41 In merely requiring such a declaration, Directive 93/96 differs from Directives 90/364 and 90/365, which do indicate the minimum level of income that persons wishing to avail themselves of those directives must have. That difference is explained by the special characteristics of student residence in comparison with that of persons to whom Directives 90/364 and 90/365 apply (see paragraph 45 of the judgment in Commission v Italy, cited above).
42 That interpretation does not, however, prevent a Member State from taking the view that a student who has recourse to social assistance no longer fulfils the conditions of his right of residence or from taking measures, within the limits imposed by Community law, either to withdraw his residence permit or not to renew it.
43 Nevertheless, in no case may such measures become the automatic consequence of a student who is a national of another Member State having recourse to the host Member State's social assistance system.
44 Whilst Article 4 of Directive 93/96 does indeed provide that the right of residence is to exist for as long as beneficiaries of that right fulfil the conditions laid down in Article 1, the sixth recital in the directive's preamble envisages that beneficiaries of the right of residence must not become an unreasonable burden on the public finances of the host Member State. Directive 93/96, like Directives 90/364 and 90/365, thus accepts a certain degree of financial solidarity between nationals of a host Member State and nationals of other Member States, particularly if the difficulties which a beneficiary of the right of residence encounters are temporary.
46 It follows from the foregoing that Articles 6 and 8 of the Treaty preclude entitlement to a non-contributory social benefit, such as the minimex, from being made conditional, in the case of nationals of Member States other than the host State where they are legally resident, on their falling within the scope of Regulation No 1612/68 when no such condition applies to nationals of the host Member State.
The second question referred for a preliminary ruling
50 The Court has repeatedly held that an interpretation it gives to a provision of Community law clarifies and defines its meaning and scope only as it should have been understood and applied from the time of its entry into force (see Joined Cases C-367/93 to C-377/93 Roders and Others [1995] ECR I-2229, paragraph 42, and Case C-35/97 Commission v France [1998] ECR I-5325, paragraph 46).
51 It is only exceptionally that the Court may, in application of the general principle of legal certainty inherent in the Community legal order, be moved to restrict the possibility for any person concerned to rely upon a provision which it has interpreted with a view to calling into question legal relationships established in good faith (see, inter alia, Case C-104/98 Buchner and Others [2000] ECR I-3625, paragraph 39).
52 It is also settled in case-law that the financial consequences which might ensue for a Member State from a preliminary ruling do not in themselves justify limiting the temporal effect of the ruling (see, in particular, Buchner and Others, paragraph 41).
53 The Court has taken that step only in quite specific circumstances, where there was a risk of serious economic repercussions owing in particular to the large number of legal relationships entered into in good faith on the basis of rules considered to be validly in force and where it appeared that both individuals and national authorities had been led into adopting practices which did not comply with Community law by reason of objective, significant uncertainty regarding the implications of Community provisions, to which the conduct of other Member States or the Commission may even have contributed (see, in particular, Roders and Others, cited above, paragraph 43).