Wenceslas de Lobkowicz v Ministère des Finances et des Comptes publics.
Date: 2017-05-10
27


In that regard, it should be borne in mind that the Court of Justice may refuse to rule on a request made by a national court only where it is quite obvious that the interpretation of EU law that is sought bears no relation to the actual facts of the main action or its purpose, where the problem is hypothetical, or where the Court does not have before it the factual or legal material necessary to give a useful answer to the questions submitted to it (see, inter alia, judgments of 22 June 2010, Melki and Abdeli, C‑188/10 and C‑189/10, EU:C:2010:363, paragraph 27 and the case-law cited, and of 18 April 2013, Mulders, C‑548/11, EU:C:2013:249, paragraph 27).
28


The need to provide an interpretation of EU law which will be of use to the referring court, as made clear by Article 94 of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, requires that court to define the factual and legislative context of the questions it is asking or, at the very least, to explain the factual circumstances on which those questions are based (judgments of 11 March 2010, Attanasio Group, C‑384/08, EU:C:2010:133, paragraph 32, and of 5 December 2013, Zentralbetriebsrat der gemeinnützigen Salzburger Landeskliniken, C‑514/12, EU:C:2013:799, paragraph 17).
34


It should be borne in mind, first of all, that, although Member States retain the power to organise their social security schemes, they must nonetheless, when exercising that power, observe EU law (judgments of 1 April 2008, Government of the French Community and Walloon Government, C‑212/06, EU:C:2008:178, paragraph 43; of 21 January 2016, Commission v Cyprus, C‑515/14, EU:C:2016:30, paragraph 38, and of 6 October 2016, Adrien and Others, C‑466/15, EU:C:2016:749, paragraph 22).
35


Secondly, an EU official may have the status of a migrant worker for the purposes of Article 45 TFEU as a national of a Member State working in the territory of a Member State other than his or her State of origin. However, the fact nevertheless remains that, in so far as EU officials are not subject to national legislation on social security, as referred to in Article 2(1) of Regulation No 1408/71 and in the same article of Regulation No 883/2004, which defines the persons covered by those regulations, they cannot be characterised as ‘workers’ within the meaning of those provisions. Nor are they covered, in that context, by Article 48 TFEU, which conferred on the Council the task of instituting a scheme allowing workers to overcome any obstacles which may arise for them from national rules in the field of social security, a task which the Council fulfilled by adopting Regulation No 1408/71 and, subsequently, Regulation No 883/2004 (see, to that effect, judgments of 3 October 2000, Ferlini, C‑411/98, EU:C:2000:530, paragraphs 41 and 42, and of 16 December 2004, My, C‑293/03, EU:C:2004:821, paragraphs 34 to 37).
38


Therefore, the legal position of EU officials with regard to their social security obligations comes within the scope of EU law by reason of their employment by the European Union (see, to that effect, judgment of 13 July 1983, Forcheri, 152/82, EU:C:1983:205, paragraph 9).
42


Secondly, the Staff Regulations, in so far as they were established by Regulation No 259/68, have all the characteristics listed in Article 288 TFEU, which stipulates that a regulation has general application, is binding in its entirety and is directly applicable in all Member States. It follows that all Member States are also bound by the Staff Regulations (see, to that effect, judgments of 20 October 1981, Commission v Belgium, 137/80, EU:C:1981:237, paragraphs 7 and 8; of 7 May 1987, Commission v Belgium, 186/85, EU:C:1987:208, paragraph 21; of 4 December 2003, Kristiansen, C‑92/02, EU:C:2003:652, paragraph 32; and of 4 February 2015, Melchior, C‑647/13, EU:C:2015:54, paragraph 22).
48


The foregoing analysis is not called in question by the French Government’s claims that the contributions and social levies at issue in the main proceedings are classified as ‘taxes’ that are levied on income from real estate, not on earned income, and which do not directly give rise to any benefits in return or to any advantage in terms of social security benefits. In fact, as is apparent from the information provided by the referring court, those levies and contributions are in any event allocated specifically and directly for the funding of certain branches of the French social security scheme. An EU official such as Mr de Lobkowicz cannot, accordingly, be subject to those levies and contributions since his financial obligations in matters of social security are governed exclusively by the Protocol and the Staff Regulations and, as such, fall outside the jurisdiction of the Member States (see, by analogy, with regard to Regulation No 1408/71, judgment of 26 February 2015, de Ruyter, C‑623/13, EU:C:2015:123, paragraphs 23, 26, 28 and 29).