Reference has been made to the Court of Justice of the European Communities by a judgment of the Cour du travail de Liège, (9th Chamber) (Higher Labour Court, 9th Chamber, Liège), Belgium, of 7 June 2004, received at the Court Registry on 17 June 2004, for a preliminary ruling in the case of Office national de l'emploi against Ioannis loannidis on the following question:

Is it contrary to Community law (in particular Articles 12, 17 and 18 of the EC Treaty) for rules of a Member State (such as, in Belgium, the Royal Decree of 25 November 1991 on unemployment) which provide for a tideover allowance to be given to a job seekers who are (in principle) less than 30 years old on the basis of the secondary education they have completed to apply to job seekers who are nationals of another Member State the condition, applicable equally to its own nationals, that the allowance is granted only if the required education has been completed in an educational establishment run, subsidised or recognised by one of the three national Communities (as laid down in the Royal Decree by Article 36(1)1(2)(a)), with the result that the tideover allowance is refused in the case of a young job seeker who is not a member of the family of a migrant worker, but who is a national of another Member State in which, before moving within the Union, he had pursued and completed secondary education, recognised as equivalent to the education required by the authorities of the State in which the application for the tideover allowance has been made?