Keywords
Summary

Keywords

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1. Social security for migrant workers ° Equal treatment ° National provision confining the treatment of periods of invalidity as periods of active employment for the purpose of calculating old-age pension to persons who were employed at the time when they stopped work ° Manner of application having the effect of disadvantaging workers who have been employed in more than one Member State ° Not permissible

(EEC Treaty, Arts 48 to 51)

2. Social security for migrant workers ° Old-age and death insurance ° Calculation of benefits in the event of overlapping periods ° Invalidity benefit converted into old-age pension ° Application of Article 15(1)(c) and (d) of Regulation No 574/72 ° Obligations of national courts

(Council Regulations No 1408/71, Art. 46(1), second subpara., and No 574/72, Art. 15(1)(c) and (d))

3. Social security for migrant workers ° Old-age and death insurance ° Calculation of benefits ° Invalidity benefit converted into old-age pension ° Application to notional daily remuneration laid down for periods treated as periods of employment of the same proportion as that used for calculating invalidity pension ° Permissible

Summary

1. It would be contrary to Articles 48 to 51 of the Treaty if, as a consequence of the exercise of their freedom of movement, migrant workers were to lose the social security advantages guaranteed to them by the laws of a single Member State, since such a consequence might discourage Community workers from exercising their right to freedom of movement and would therefore constitute an obstacle to that freedom.

It is therefore incompatible with the requirements of freedom of movement for a migrant worker to be precluded from relying for the calculation of his old-age pension on national legislation treating periods of invalidity as periods of active employment on the sole ground that, when he became incapable of work, he was employed, not in the Member State of the institution by which the benefit is payable, but in another Member State.

Indeed, the prospect of a worker' s losing, in one Member State, the right to have periods of invalidity treated as periods of insurance, which would occur if he went to work in another Member State, is likely in certain circumstances to discourage him from exercising his right to freedom of movement.

2. When calculating the amount of an old-age benefit by reference to the rules set out in the second subparagraph of Article 46(1) of Regulation No 1408/71, it is necessary to apply Article 15(1)(c) and (d) of Regulation No 574/72 concerning the conditions under which periods treated as insurance periods are to be taken into account, in particular where periods overlap. To this end, it is for the national court to ascertain how the legislation of another Member State categorizes periods during which invalidity benefits were paid under that legislation.

3. As Community law stands at present, it merely coordinates social security legislation and there is nothing to preclude the legislation of a Member State which, for the purpose of calculating an old-age pension, provides for a notional daily rate of remuneration in respect of periods treated as periods of employment from applying to that remuneration the same proportion as that on the basis of which the invalidity pension granted earlier was calculated.