Keywords
Summary

Keywords

Social security for migrant workers - Benefits - National legislation to prevent overlapping - Where, in calculating pensions, the war years are taken into account in accordance with a presumption confined to periods not reckonable for the purposes of a pension under the scheme of another Member State - Such rules do not constitute `provisions on reduction, suspension or withdrawal' within the meaning of Regulation No 1408/71

(Council Regulation No 1408/71, as amended by Regulation No 1248/92)

Summary

$$The term `provisions on reduction, suspension or withdrawal' within the meaning of Regulation No 1408/71, as amended by Regulation No 1248/92, does not cover national legislation - such as that establishing the Belgian `war years presumption' - under which an employed person who, between 1 January 1938 and 1 January 1945, was in employment in respect of which minimum contributions were paid under a social security scheme of the State concerned is deemed to have paid sufficient contributions to establish that he was normally and principally employed throughout the period between the date on which the period of employment established came to an end and 1 January 1946, but under which that presumption is not applicable to periods of employment for which the person concerned receives a pension under a scheme of another State.

In so far as a provision of that kind is part of legislation whose purpose is to reduce the damaging effects of the Second World War on the pension rights of workers subject to the legislation of the Member State concerned, it merely gives due effect to the fact that, for all or part of the periods of employment in respect of which the person concerned is not in a position to prove payment of sufficient social security contributions under the scheme in question, he is already receiving a pension under another scheme.