Suchergebnisse

In this reporting period (November 2020-March 2021), five cases will be presented. The first case is INPS v WS (C-302/19), dealing with the Italian legislation that excludes Single Permit holders from receiving family benefits for their family members residing in a third country. In the second report, two cases rendered on the same day by the Grand Chamber of the Court are discussed. In D.J. v Radiotelevizija Slovenija (C-344/19) and RJ v Stadt Offenbach am Main (C-580/19), the Court clarified the circumstances under which periods of stand-by time could be considered as 'working time' or, alternatively, 'rest periods' under Directive 2003/88. XI v Caisse pour l'avenir des enfants (C-129/20) is the third case reported. It concerns an interpretation of the Framework Agreement on parental leave in the light of the Luxembourg legislation, which requires parents to be employed at the time of their child's birth to benefit from parental leave. Finally, the case report ends with VL v Szpital Kliniczny im. dra J. Babińskiego Samodzielny Publiczny Zakład Opieki Zdrowotnej w Krakowie (C-16/19), a case of discrimination on grounds of disability.

The reporting period (September 2020-December 2020) was a particularly intense time in terms of important judgments on social security with no fewer than four judgments from the Grand Chamber of the Court. This overview reports five cases in total. First, there are three cases on the Posted Workers Directive. The first two are on the dismissal of the annulment procedures regarding the adoption of the new Posted Workers Directive (Directive 2018/957) started by Hungary (C-620/18) and Poland (C-626/18). Then, the FNV case (C-815/18), which is on the application of the Posted Workers Directive (Directive 96/71) to the transnational provision of services in the road transport sector, is discussed. The overview continues onto other subjects, with a follow-up of the Dano and Alimanovic saga in the Job Center Krefeld case (C-181/19), which relates to the access to social assistance for a job-seeker who is the primary carer of a child receiving education in the host Member State. From there, commentary is given on the A v. Veselï bas ministrija case, which deals with the difficult balance between the freedom of religion and the system of prior authorization for planned healthcare. Finally, the Syndicat CFTC case (C-463/19) is reviewed, and it concerns the conditions under which an additional maternity leave can be reserved to female workers without being considered as discriminatory.

The reporting period (September 2020-December 2020) was a particularly intense time in terms of important judgments on social security with no fewer than four judgments from the Grand Chamber of the Court. This overview reports five cases in total. First, there are three cases on the Posted Workers Directive. The first two are on the dismissal of the annulment procedures regarding the adoption of the new Posted Workers Directive (Directive 2018/957) started by Hungary (C-620/18) and Poland (C-626/18). Then, the FNV case (C-815/18), which is on the application of the Posted Workers Directive (Directive 96/71) to the transnational provision of services in the road transport sector, is discussed. The overview continues onto other subjects, with a follow-up of the Dano and Alimanovic saga in the Job Center Krefeld case (C-181/19), which relates to the access to social assistance for a job-seeker who is the primary carer of a child receiving education in the host Member State. From there, commentary is given on the A v. Veselï bas ministrija case, which deals with the difficult balance between the freedom of religion and the system of prior authorization for planned healthcare. Finally, the Syndicat CFTC case (C-463/19) is reviewed, and it concerns the conditions under which an additional maternity leave can be reserved to female workers without being considered as discriminatory.

Being part of the special issue on strategies for Social Europe, this overview of recent cases before the Court of Justice is focused on matters that are high on the European agenda for Social Europe. Firstly, in the aftermath of the economic crisis, many Member States had to reduce their generous pension schemes. The YS case, rendered by the Grand Chamber on the 23rd September 2020, deals with the limits afforded by the Member States when they reduce an occupational pension scheme in order to secure the continuity of State-funded pensions. Secondly, the status of "self-employed" delivery carriers operating in the gig economy is being discussed in many Member States' courts. In the Yodel case, the Court of Justice clarified in July 2020 whether such delivery carriers should be considered as "self-employed persons" or as "workers" for the purposes of the Working Time Directive. Lastly, the AFMB case concerns the underlying issue of using a company situated in a Member State as the formal employer of international transport workers in order to benefit from more advantageous social security legislation. The Court then determined in April 2020 the criteria to establish who is the actual employer of international transport workers.

In the reporting period (1 February - 30 June 2020), there were five noteworthy cases in the field of social security. Two cases originated in French courts and concerned E 101 certificates. The Vueling case concerned the conditions for disregarding fraudulent E 101 certificates. Bouygues travaux publics dealt with the effects of E 101 certificates on obligations at the crossroads of social security and labour law. In Pensionsversicherungsanstalt v CW, the issue concerned whether a Member State of origin, Austria, must grant a rehabilitation allowance to a national no longer working or residing there. Caisse d'assurance retraite et de la santé au travail d'Alsace-Moselle v SJ related to the obligation for the competent institution to take into account an allowance paid by another Member State for raising a disabled child when calculating an insurance period for entitlement to an old-age pension. Finally, Caisse pour l'avenir des enfants v FV was a case about access to family benefits by a frontier worker for a child living in the same household but with whom there was no blood relationship.

During the period of reporting (1 October 2019-31 January 2020), six judgments are worth noting in the area of EU social security law. In Safeway, the Court had to decide whether Article 119 of the EC Treaty on equal treatment precluded a measure ending discrimination through the fixing, with retroactive effect, of a uniform normal pension age equal to that of the members within the previously disadvantaged category. In Bocero Torrico, the question related to the obligation on Member States, under Regulation 883/2004, to take into account equivalent benefits acquired in other Member States for the purpose of calculating an early retirement pension. WA concerned a discriminatory law that granted a pension supplement solely to women. UB was about a discriminatory law that granted additional benefits for sportspersons based on their citizenship. In ZP, the question concerned Article 62 of Regulation 883/2004 dealing with the calculation of unemployment benefits. Finally, in Pensions-Sicherungs-Verein, the Court had to interpret Article 8 of Directive 2008/94 in the context of a reduction of pension benefits following the insolvency of the employer.

Being part of the special issue on strategies for Social Europe, this overview of recent cases before the Court of Justice is focused on matters that are high on the European agenda for Social Europe. Firstly, in the aftermath of the economic crisis, many Member States had to reduce their generous pension schemes. The YS case, rendered by the Grand Chamber on the 23rd September 2020, deals with the limits afforded by the Member States when they reduce an occupational pension scheme in order to secure the continuity of State-funded pensions. Secondly, the status of "self-employed" delivery carriers operating in the gig economy is being discussed in many Member States' courts. In the Yodel case, the Court of Justice clarified in July 2020 whether such delivery carriers should be considered as "self-employed persons" or as "workers" for the purposes of the Working Time Directive. Lastly, the AFMB case concerns the underlying issue of using a company situated in a Member State as the formal employer of international transport workers in order to benefit from more advantageous social security legislation. The Court then determined in April 2020 the criteria to establish who is the actual employer of international transport workers.

During the period of reporting (1 October 2019-31 January 2020), six judgments are worth noting in the area of EU social security law. In Safeway, the Court had to decide whether Article 119 of the EC Treaty on equal treatment precluded a measure ending discrimination through the fixing, with retroactive effect, of a uniform normal pension age equal to that of the members within the previously disadvantaged category. In Bocero Torrico, the question related to the obligation on Member States, under Regulation 883/2004, to take into account equivalent benefits acquired in other Member States for the purpose of calculating an early retirement pension. WA concerned a discriminatory law that granted a pension supplement solely to women. UB was about a discriminatory law that granted additional benefits for sportspersons based on their citizenship. In ZP, the question concerned Article 62 of Regulation 883/2004 dealing with the calculation of unemployment benefits. Finally, in Pensions-Sicherungs-Verein, the Court had to interpret Article 8 of Directive 2008/94 in the context of a reduction of pension benefits following the insolvency of the employer.

In the reporting period (1 February - 30 June 2020), there were five noteworthy cases in the field of social security. Two cases originated in French courts and concerned E 101 certificates. TheVuelingcase concerned the conditions for disregarding fraudulent E 101 certificates.Bouygues travaux publicsdealt with the effects of E 101 certificates on obligations at the crossroads of social security and labour law. InPensionsversicherungsanstalt v CW, the issue concerned whether a Member State of origin, Austria, must grant a rehabilitation allowance to a national no longer working or residing there.Caisse d'assurance retraite et de la sante au travail d'Alsace-Moselle v SJrelated to the obligation for the competent institution to take into account an allowance paid by another Member State for raising a disabled child when calculating an insurance period for entitlement to an old-age pension. Finally,Caisse pour l'avenir des enfants v FVwas a case about access to family benefits by a frontier worker for a child living in the same household but with whom there was no blood relationship.

In a 2012 Communication, the European Commission described the current approach to social security coordination with third countries as 'patchy'. The European Commission proposed to address that patchiness by developing a common EU approach to social security coordination with third countries whereby the Member States would cooperate more with each other when concluding bilateral agreements with third countries. This article aims to explore the policy agenda of the European Commission in that field by conducting a comparative legal analysis of the Member States' bilateral agreements with India. The idea behind the comparative legal analysis is to determine whether (1) there are common grounds between the Member States' approaches, and (2) based on these common grounds, it is possible to suggest a common EU approach. India is taken as a third-country case study due to its labour migration and investment potential for the European Union. In addition, there are currently 12 Member State bilateral agreements with India and no instrument at the EU level on social security coordination with India. Therefore, there is a potential need for a common EU approach to social security coordination with India. Based on the comparative legal analysis of the Member States' bilateral agreements with India, this article ends by outlining the content of a potential future common EU approach.

In a 2012 Communication, the European Commission described the current approach to social security coordination with third countries as 'patchy'. The European Commission proposed to address that patchiness by developing a common EU approach to social security coordination with third countries whereby the Member States would cooperate more with each other when concluding bilateral agreements with third countries. This article aims to explore the policy agenda of the European Commission in that field by conducting a comparative legal analysis of the Member States' bilateral agreements with India. The idea behind the comparative legal analysis is to determine whether (1) there are common grounds between the Member States' approaches, and (2) based on these common grounds, it is possible to suggest a common EU approach. India is taken as a third-country case study due to its labour migration and investment potential for the European Union. In addition, there are currently 12 Member State bilateral agreements with India and no instrument at the EU level on social security coordination with India. Therefore, there is a potential need for a common EU approach to social security coordination with India. Based on the comparative legal analysis of the Member States' bilateral agreements with India, this article ends by outlining the content of a potential future common EU approach.

In the context of international migration, social security coordination is a technique used primarily by states in order to build bridges between their social security systems for securing the rights of migrants. Migrants who have careers in multiple countries risk losing their acquired rights when moving from one country to another. Currently, the key instruments in EU social security coordination are Regulations 883/2004, 987/2009 and 1231/2010. Contrary to this uniform system, the social security coordination rules applicable to persons moving from a third country to an EU Member State (or vice-versa) can be found in several instruments. This book aims to identify the different instruments of the external dimension of EU social security coordination and proposes two policy options for improving the current patchy solution while developing a common EU approach: the inclusion of social security coordination clauses in agreements with third counties and the draft of a model agreement for future use in bilateral agreement negotiations regarding social security.

This case report discusses six judgments of the Court of Justice of the EU rendered between September and 19 December 2023. The first judgment reported is in case C-422/22 Zaklad v TE, in which the Court took the opportunity to clarify that the duty for the issuing institution to verify that the conditions for issuing an A1 (posting) certificate are met arises not only at the moment of the issuance but also continuously during the posting period. The case report also covers the case C-45/22 HK v Service fédéral des Pensions, in which the Court interpreted for the first time Article 55(1) (a) of Regulation 883/2004 on the method of calculation for overlapping benefits of a different kind. The case report ends with two rulings dealing with infringement procedures against the Netherlands: C-459/22 and C-360/22 European Commission v Kingdom of The Netherlands. In these judgments, the Court considered that the Dutch tax rules on transfer of pension capital were an infringement of the free movement of workers (Article 45 TFEU). Finally, we report on two cases on social security benefits for EU officials and two cases dealing with Covid-19 measures.

In this casenote, the judgments in DRV Intertrans and Verbraeken (Joined Cases C-410/21 and C-661/21) and Thermalhotel Fontana (Case C-411/22) are discussed. DRV Intertrans and Verbraeken concerned a case of alleged fraudulent A1 certificates for posted workers. The issue was that those A1 certificates were only provisionally, as opposed to definitively, withdrawn by the issuing institution. As a result, the referring court in DRV Intertrans and Verbraken asked the Court of Justice whether the courts of the Member State where the work was carried out could consider the provisional withdrawal of the A1 certificates by the issuing institution as rendering those A1 certificate non-binding. Alternatively, the referring court asked whether it could disregard those A1 certificates following the Altun jurisprudence of the Court of Justice. Thermalhotel Fontana involved isolation measures being imposed on frontier workers by their Member State of residence, making them unable to work. The specific legal issue at hand in Thermalhotel Fontana concerned the fact that the employer of those frontier workers was not able to get compensation from Austria, the Member State of establishment, for his employees due to the fact that the isolation measures were not taken by Austria but by the Member States of residence of the frontier workers. Considering that this case did not fall within the scope of Regulation 883/2004, the Court examined it under the principle of equal treatment of EU workers.

Five judgments from the Court of Justice on social security are reported on in this case note. First, Raad van bestuur van de Sociale verzekeringbank v X and Y (C-713/20) concerns the legislation applicable under Regulation 883/2004 to temporary agency workers in relation to periods between contracts. Second, DN v Finanzamt Österreich (Recouvrement de prestations familiales) (C-199/21) deals with the right to receive family benefits for a parent not residing with his child but bearing the costs of maintenance. Third, MCM v Centrala studiestödsnämnden (C-638/20) is about the export of student financial assistance for family members of migrant workers under Article 45 TFEU. Fourth, the requirement to register a partnership for the purpose of accessing a survivor's pension in a Member State, although that partnership was lawfully concluded and registered in another Member State, is under scrutiny in Caisse nationale d'assurance pension (C-731/21). Fifth and finally, FK v Rechtsanwaltskammer Wien (C-58/21) discusses the requirement to waive one's right to practise as a lawyer in other Member States in order to be granted an early retirement pension in light of Articles 45 TFEU and Article 49 TFEU.