Keywords
Summary

Keywords

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Social policy ° Equal treatment for men and women in matters of social security ° Directive 79/7 ° Article 4(1) ° Scheme of social assistance for older and/or partially incapacitated workers who are long-term unemployed subject to conditions relating to previous employment and age ° Scheme enabling many more men than women to avoid another, less favourable, scheme of social assistance ° Objective justification ° Permissibility

(Council Directive 79/7, Art. 4(1))

Summary

Article 4(1) of Directive 79/7/EEC on the progressive implementation of the principle of equal treatment for men and women in matters of social security must be interpreted as meaning that a national statutory scheme of social assistance for older or partially incapacitated workers who are also long-term unemployed which provides for a benefit designed to guarantee beneficiaries income at the level of the social minimum, irrespective as to whether the claimant has any resources but subject to conditions relating to his previous employment and age, does not involve discrimination on grounds of sex even if it is established that many more men than women find in that scheme a way of avoiding the means test which, in contrast, has to be satisfied in the case of another scheme which, albeit providing for a benefit of the same type, is less favourable, since the national legislature was reasonably entitled to consider that the scheme in question was necessary in order to attain a social policy aim unrelated to any discrimination on grounds of sex.

This is the case where the legislature seeks to protect unemployed persons who are still unemployed after the maximum period for the payment of individual, solely earnings-related, benefits has run out, from the risk of their having to break into the assets saved out of their earnings over their whole working life, having regard to the very small likelihood of their rebuilding their assets by resuming gainful employment, where the conditions for the grant of the relevant benefits are formulated in such a way that only that class of employed person can qualify for them.