Keywords
Summary

Keywords

1. Social security for migrant workers - Unemployment - Unemployed person travelling to another Member State - Retention of the right to benefit - Interpretation on the basis of the rules of national law of the first Member State

(Council Regulation No 1408/71, Art. 69(1)(a))

2. Social security for migrant workers - Unemployment - Unemployed person travelling to another Member State - Retention of the right to benefit - Conditions - Availability to the employment services of the competent State

(Council Regulation No 1408/71, Art. 69(1)(a))

Summary

1. Article 69 of Regulation No 1408/71, as amended and updated by Regulation No 118/97, enables an unemployed worker to be exempt for a specific period, for the purpose of seeking employment in another Member State, from the obligation imposed by the various national laws to make himself available to the employment services of the competent State without thereby losing his entitlement to unemployment benefits as against that State. That provision is not simply a measure to coordinate national laws on social security. It establishes an independent body of rules in favour of workers claiming the benefit thereof which constitute an exception to national legal rules and which must be interpreted uniformly in all the Member States irrespective of the rules laid down in national law regarding the continuance and loss of entitlement to benefits. It follows that the conditions set out in Article 69(1) of Regulation No 1408/71 must be construed as being exhaustive and that the competent authorities of the Member States are not entitled to impose additional conditions. It is, however, necessary to refer to national law, whether of the Member State which the unemployed person has left or of that to which he moves, in order to determine whether certain of the conditions imposed by that provision have been satisfied. Uniform application of that provision in all the Member States, making it possible for it to achieve its aim of helping to ensure the free movement of workers in accordance with Article 42 EC, does not require that the detailed arrangements for registration of a worker as a person seeking employment and the question of the conditions under which he may be regarded as having remained available to the employment services of the competent State be regulated in a uniform manner in all Member States. The question as to the conditions under which a person may be regarded as having remained available to the employment services of the competent State within the meaning of Article 69(1)(a) must be examined on the basis of the rules of national law of that State.

( see paras 17-19, 25, 27, operative part 1 )

2. Article 69(1)(a) of Regulation No 1408/71, as amended and updated by Regulation No 118/97, must be construed as meaning that, in order to retain entitlement to unemployment benefits as provided for therein, a person seeking work must have remained available to the employment services of the competent State for a total of at least four weeks after the commencement of unemployment, regardless of whether that period was continuous or not.

( see para. 32, operative part 2 )