Keywords
Summary

Keywords

1. Freedom of movement for persons – Workers – Regulation No 1612/68 – Concept of ‘migrant worker’

(Council Regulation No 1612/68)

2. Freedom of movement for persons – Workers – Equal treatment – Social advantages

(Council Regulation No 1612/68, Art. 7(2))

Summary

1. A national of a Member State who, while maintaining his employment in that State, has transferred his residence to another Member State and has since then carried on his occupation as a frontier worker can claim the status of migrant worker for the purposes of Regulation No 1612/68 on freedom of movement for workers within the Community.

(see para. 20, operative part 1)

2. Article 7(2) of Regulation No 1612/68 on freedom of movement for workers within the Community precludes the spouse of a migrant worker carrying on an occupation in one Member State, who does not work and is resident in another Member State, from being refused a child-raising allowance on the ground that he does not have his permanent or ordinary residence in the former State. The grant of such an allowance to a worker’s spouse, since it benefits the family as a whole, whichever parent it is who claims the allowance, is capable of reducing that worker’s obligation to contribute to family expenses, and therefore constitutes for him or her a ‘social advantage’ within the meaning of Article 7(2) of Regulation No 1612/68.

Such a residence condition must be regarded as indirectly discriminatory if it is intrinsically liable to affect migrant workers or their spouses, who more often reside in another Member State, than to affect national workers, and if there is a consequent risk that it will place the former at a particular disadvantage.

In the context of national legislation pursuing family policy objectives, granting the child-raising allowance to persons who have established a real link with national society and under which a substantial contribution to the national labour market also constitutes a valid factor of integration into society, the allowance in question cannot be refused to a couple who do not live in the national territory, but one of whom works full-time in that State.

(see paras 26, 30-33, 36-38, operative part 2)