Keywords
Summary

Keywords

1. Social security for migrant workers - Community rules - Persons covered - National of a Member State claiming, following an accident at work which occurred in another Member State before accession of the relevant State to the European Union, an occupational disability pension - Included

(Council Regulation No 1408/71, Art. 94(2) and (3))

2. Social security for migrant workers - Equal treatment - Conditions governing acquisition of a right to an occupational disability pension resulting from an accident at work - National measure providing for an exception to the requirement of a qualifying period only in the event that the victim, at the time of the accident, had been insured under the legislation of the State concerned - Not permissible

(EC Treaty, Art. 48(2) (now, after amendment, Art. 39(2) EC); Council Regulation No 1408/71, Art. 94(3))

3. Social security for migrant workers - Equal treatment - National measure setting a reference period for acquisition of the right to a pension - Possibility of extending the reference period - Exclusion of that possibility when the facts or circumstances giving entitlement, such as the payment of accident benefits, occur in another Member State - Not permissible - Invalidity of Article 9(a) of Regulation No 1408/71

(EC Treaty, Arts 48(2) and 51 (now, after amendment, Arts 39(2) and 42 EC); Council Regulation No 1408/71, Art. 9(a))

Summary

1. The situation of a person who is a national of a Member State, who, before the accession of that State to the European Union, was employed in another Member State where he was the victim of an accident at work, and who, after the accession of his home State, applies to the authorities in that State for an occupational disability pension as a result of that accident falls within the scope of application of Regulation No 1408/71, as amended and updated by Regulation No 118/97.

It follows from Article 94(2) of the Regulation that a Member State is not entitled to refuse to take into account periods of insurance completed in the territory of another Member State, for the purposes of establishment of a retirement pension, for the sole reason that they were completed before the entry into force of the Regulation in its regard. There is no doubt that an accident at work which occurred on the territory of a Member State before the entry into force of Regulation No 1408/71 in another Member State under whose legislation occupational disability benefits as a result of that accident are claimed, constitutes a contingency within the meaning of Article 94(3) of that regulation.

( see paras 23, 25-26, operative part 1 )

2. Article 94(3) of Regulation No 1408/71, as amended and updated by Regulation No 118/97, read in conjunction with Article 48(2) of the Treaty (now, after amendment, Article 39(2) EC), must be interpreted as precluding a national measure which provides an exception to the requirement of a qualifying period as a condition for the acquisition of the right to an occupational disability pension where that disability is the result of an accident at work - which occurred, in the case in point, before the date of entry into force of that regulation in the Member State concerned - only in the event that the victim had been insured compulsorily or privately at the time of the accident under the legislation of that State, to the exclusion of the legislation of all other Member States.

( see para. 36, operative part 2 )

3. Articles 48(2) and 51 of the Treaty (now, after amendment, Articles 39(2) and 42 EC) must be interpreted as meaning that they preclude a national provision which takes into account, for the purposes of prolongation of the reference period during which the qualifying period for the acquisition of the right to a pension must have been completed, only those periods during which the insured person received an occupational disability pension under a national accident insurance scheme, without providing for the possibility of a prolongation of that period where a benefit of such a kind was paid under the legislation of another Member State. Even if, formally, legislation of that type applies without distinction as to nationality to all Community workers, who may accordingly, under the conditions which it lays down, benefit from the prolongation of the reference period, such legislation, in so far as it makes no provision for the possibility of prolongation of the reference period where events or circumstances, such as the payment of accident benefits, corresponding to those which enable the period to be prolonged occur in another Member State, is liable to have a much greater adverse effect on migrant workers, since they above all, particularly in the case of invalidity, tend to return to their countries of origin.

For the same reasons, Article 9a of Regulation 1408/71, as amended and updated by Regulation No 118/97, must be declared invalid in so far as it expressly excludes the possibility to take account, for the purposes of the extension of the reference period under the law of a Member State, periods in the course of which industrial accident allowances have been paid under the law of another Member State.

( see paras 38-40, 3-4 )