Keywords
Summary

Keywords

1 Freedom of movement for persons - Workers - Equal treatment - Social advantages - Members of family - Indirect entitlement - Child of a national of a Member State who died before accession of his country of origin to the Community - Excluded

(EC Treaty, Art. 48; Council Regulation No 1612/68, Arts 7(2) and 10)

2 Social security for migrant workers - Equal treatment - Family benefits - Orphans' benefits - Right to extension of an orphan's benefit provided for by the legislation of a Member State where the recipient's training was interrupted by military service - Assimilation of military service in another Member State to national military service for the purposes of granting the extension

(Council Regulation No 1408/71, Art. 3(1))

Summary

3 Members of a worker's family within the meaning of Article 10 of Regulation No 1612/68 qualify only indirectly for the equal treatment accorded to the worker himself by Article 7 of that regulation.

It follows that where a national of a Member State has died before the accession of his country of origin to the Community and therefore does not have the status of a worker within the meaning of Article 48 of the Treaty or of Regulation No 1612/68, his child cannot benefit, as a member of the family of a Community worker, from the equal treatment rule laid down by Article 7 of Regulation No 1612/68.

4 Article 3(1) of Regulation No 1408/71 on the application of social security schemes to employed persons, to self-employed persons and to members of their families moving within the Community, as amended and updated by Regulation No 2001/83, must be interpreted as meaning that, where the legislation of a Member State provides for extension of the right to an orphan's benefit beyond the age of 25 for recipients of such benefits whose training has been interrupted by their military service, that State is required to assimilate military service in another Member State to military service under its own legislation.

The equal treatment rule laid down by that provision prohibits not only overt discrimination based on the nationality of the beneficiaries of social security schemes but also all covert forms of discrimination which, through the application of other distinguishing criteria, lead in fact to the same result. The refusal to assimilate military service in another Member State to military service completed in the State concerned is liable to result in nationals of other Member States being unable to benefit from the right to extension of the orphan's benefit beyond the age of 25 for a period equal to that of their military service where the recipient's training is interrupted by reason of such service.