C-243/94 · GlobalLawDB

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Judgment of the Court (Sixth Chamber)28 March 1996^noteIn Case C-243/94,REFERENCE to the Court under Article 177 of the EC Treaty by the Sozialgericht Stuttgart (Germany) for a preliminary ruling in the proceedings pending before that court betweenAlejandro Rincón MorenoandBundesanstalt für ArbeitTHE COURT (Sixth Chamber),composed of: C. N. Kakouris (Rapporteur), President of the Chamber, F. A. Schockweiler, P. J. G. Kapteyn, J. L. Murray and H. Ragnemalm, Judges,Advocate General: Μ. Β. Elmer,Registrar: Η. Α. Rühi, Principal Administrator,after considering the written observations submitted on behalf of:— Mr Moreno, by Angel Gonzalez Maeztu, Head of the Social Affairs Service in the Spanish Consulate-General,— the German Government, by Ernst Röder, Ministerialrat in the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs, and Gereon Thiele, Assessor in that ministry, acting as Agents,— the Spanish Government, by Alberto José Navarro González, Director-General for Community Legal and Institutional Coordination, and Gloria Calvo Díaz, Abogado del Estado, of the State Legal Service, acting as Agents,the Commission of the European Communities, by Maria Patakia, of its Legal Service, and Horstpeter Kreppcl, a national civil servant on secondment to the Commission's Legal Service, acting as Agents,having regard to the Report for the Hearing,after hearing the oral observations of Mr Moreno, represented by Angel González Maeztu; the German Government, represented by Ernst Roder; the Spanish Government, represented by Gloria Calvo Díaz; the United Kingdom, represented by Philippa Watson, Barrister, and the Commission, represented by Maria Patakia and Horstpeter Kreppel, at the hearing on 5 October 1995,after hearing the Opinion of the Advocate General at the sitting on 7 December 1995,gives the following

Judgment

1By order of 29 August 1994, received at the Court on 8 September 1994, the Sozialgericht (Social Court) Stuttgart referred to the Court for a preliminary ruling under Article 177 of the EC Treaty a question on the interpretation of Article 74 of Council Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71 of 14 June 1971 on the application of social security schemes to employed persons, to self-employed persons and to members of their families moving within the Community (OJ, English Special Edition 1971 (II), p. 416), as amended and updated by Council Regulation (EEC) No 2001/83 of 2 June 1983 (OJ 1983 L 230, p. 6) and subsequently by Council Regulation (EEC) No 3427/89 of 30 October 1989 (OJ 1989 L 331, p. 1, hereinafter ‘Regulation No 1408/71’).

2That question has arisen in a dispute between Mr Moreno and the Bundesanstalt für Arbeit (Federal Labour Office) concerning the latter's refusal to pay family benefits to Mr Moreno for the months of January and February 1993.

3Mr Moreno, who is a Spanish national, was employed in Germany from 1966 to 15 December 1992 and on that basis received family benefits from the Bundesanstalt für Arbeit for his two sons, who were studying in Spain.

4Mr Moreno was dismissed from his employment on 15 December 1992. In view of the length of his employment contract, its termination was subject under German legislation to expiry of a period of notice. With Mr Moreno's agreement, however, that notice was waived and his employer paid him compensation on account of dismissal.

5In the light of that fact, the Bundesanstalt für Arbeit adopted two decisions in respect of Mr Moreno under the Arbeitsförderungsgesetz (Law on Employment Promotion) of 25 June 1969 (hereinafter the ‘AFG’) (Bundesgesetzblatt I, p. 582), as amended.

6The Bundesanstalt für Arbeit first decided to suspend Mr Moreno's entitlement to unemployment benefit for the period from 16 December 1992 to 21 February 1993, pursuant to Paragraph 117(2) and (3) of the AFG. Under those provisions, an unemployed person whose employment contract has been terminated without observance of a period of notice and who receives compensation from his employer is subject to suspension of his entitlement to unemployment benefit for a period the duration of which depends on the amount of compensation paid.

7Secondly, the Bundesanstalt für Arbeit decided that benefit should be withheld from Mr Moreno for the period from 16 December 1992 to 9 March 1993 pursuant to the combined provisions of Paragraphs 119 and 119a of the AFG. Those provisions state that if an unemployed person has terminated the employment relationship or if his conduct in breach of the employment contract has given rise to termination of the employment relationship and thus brought about his unemployment either intentionally or through gross negligence, that person is to be excluded from unemployment benefit for a specified period.

8However, during the suspension or temporary exclusion, the unemployed person is covered by sickness insurance under the combined provisions of Paragraph 19(2) of the Sozialgesetzbuch V (Social Security Code, Book V) and Paragraphs 155 and 155a of the AFG, as well as by the guarantee of accident insurance provided for by Paragraph 165 of the AFG.

9By decision of 6 April 1993, the Bundesanstalt für Arbeit refused to pay family benefits to Mr Moreno for the months of January and February 1993 on the ground that Article 74 of Regulation No 1408/71 required, for the granting of family benefits, that the recipient should in fact be drawing unemployment benefit. Since Mr Moreno had not been drawing any unemployment benefit during the disputed period by reason of the measures which it had adopted in his regard, the Bundesanstalt für Arbeit took the view that there was no reason to pay family benefits to him either.

10Following rejection of his complaint, Mr Moreno brought proceedings before the Sozialgericht Stuttgart in which he submits essentially that during both the suspension and exclusion periods his entitlement to family benefits ought to have been maintained, since those periods are deducted from the total period during which he is entitled to unemployment benefits, with the result that he must be regarded as a person drawing such benefits within the meaning of Article 74 of Regulation No 1408/71. This, he submits, must a fortiori be the case during the temporary exclusion inasmuch as he remains compulsorily insured against sickness under the above provisions of the Sozialgesetzbuch and the AFG.

11Since it took the view that the outcome of the dispute depended on how Article 74 of Regulation No 1408/71 was to be interpreted, the Sozialgericht Stuttgart decided to stay the proceedings and refer the following question to the Court for a preliminary ruling:‘Must Article 74 of Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71 be interpreted as meaning that unemployed persons who were formerly employed and who draw unemployment benefits under the legislation of a Member State include unemployed persons registered with the Arbeitsamt (Labour Office) whose entitlement to unemployment benefit is suspended because compensation was paid to them by their employer on termination of their employment, under Paragraph 117 of the Arbeitsförderungsgesetz (Law on employment promotion, AFG), or because of a temporary exclusion under Paragraph 119 of the AFG?’

12Article 74 of Regulation No 1408/71 provides that ‘an unemployed person who was formerly employed ... and who draws unemployment benefits under the legislation of a Member State shall be entitled, in respect of the members of his family residing in another Member State, to the family benefits provided for by the legislation of the former State, as if they were residing in that State ...’.

13It follows from that provision that, in order to be entitled to family benefits in respect of the members of his family residing in another Member State, the unemployed person must be drawing unemployment benefits under the legislation of a Member State, in this case under German legislation.

14It is necessary here to ask whether, although the Bundesanstalt für Arbeit did not, during the disputed period, pay to Mr Moreno any unemployment benefit in cash by reason of the suspension and exclusion measures, he must be regarded as having drawn unemployment benefits within the meaning of that provision.

Suspension

15Regarding the period of suspension, it should be pointed out that although Mr Moreno did not draw any unemployment benefit in cash from the competent authority, he did receive compensation from his employer when his contract of employment was terminated. The question therefore arises as to whether that compensation should be treated as an unemployment benefit for the purposes of Article 74 of Regulation No 1408/71.

16The Court has stated on numerous occasions that a benefit may be regarded as a social security benefit in so far as it is granted, without any individual and discretionary assessment of personal needs, to recipients on the basis of a legally defined position and provided that it concerns one of the risks expressly listed in Article 4(1) of Regulation No 1408/71 (see, inter alia, Case C-66/92 Acciardi ν Commissie Beroepszaken Administratieve Geschillen in de Provincie Noord-Holland [1993] ECR I-4567, paragraph 14; Case C-111/91 Commission ν Luxembourg [1993] ECR I-817, paragraph 29; Case C-78/91 Hughes ν Chief Adjudication Officer [1992] ECR I-4839, paragraph 15, and Joined Cases 379/85, 380/85, 381/85 and 93/86 Caisse Régionale d'Assurance Maladie Rhône-Alpes and Others ν Giletti and Others [1987] ECR 955, paragraph 11).

17It appears in this connection from the case-file that, within the German legal system, a worker who loses his job is in principle entitled to unemployment benefit. Paragraph 117 of the AFG, however, provides for suspension of this right where the employer has terminated the employment relationship without observing a period of notice and the unemployed worker has consequently received compensation or is required to enforce his right to compensation.

18Next, it must be pointed out, on the one hand, that the amount of this compensation is, under Paragraph 117 of the AFG, to be taken into consideration in determining the period of suspension and, on the other, that the very concept of suspension of benefits implies that the entitlement to such benefits remains but that payment of them by the competent body can resume only on expiry of the period of suspension.

19Finally, as the German Government has argued, the compensation referred to in Paragraph 117 of the AFG partially replaces the unemployment benefit to which the unemployed worker is in principle entitled. It follows that it relates directly to the risk of unemployment referred to in Article 4(1) of Regulation No 1408/71 and that consequently it can be treated as an unemployment benefit within the meaning of Article 74 of Regulation No 1408/71.

20It follows that compensation paid by reason of dismissal, such as that referred to in Paragraph 117 of the AFG, must be regarded as an unemployment benefit within the meaning of Article 74 of Regulation No 1408/71.

Temporary exclusion

21With regard to the temporary exclusion of Mr Moreno, it is necessary to consider whether that measure prevents him from drawing any unemployment benefit.

22It should be noted that Article 74 of Regulation No 1408/71 uses the term ‘unemployment benefits’ without drawing any distinction between cash benefits and other benefits and without requiring, as a condition of its application, that the person concerned draws all of the benefits provided for under the legislation of the competent State during the period of unemployment. It follows that this provision does not impose any condition with regard to the nature of the unemployment benefits.

23Consequently, in so far as the unemployed worker excluded from unemployment benefits in cash continues, under the legislation of the competent State, to be covered against the risks of sickness and accidents, the expression ‘unemployment benefits under the legislation of a Member State’ used in Article 74 of Regulation No 1408/71 must be understood as covering these types of benefit as well.

24It follows that an unemployed person who continues, during a period of temporary exclusion, to be covered, pursuant to national legislation, in respect of sickness and accidents must be regarded as drawing unemployment benefits within the meaning of Article 74 of Regulation No 1408/71.

25In the light of all the foregoing, the answer to the question submitted by the national court should be that Article 74 of Regulation No 1408/71 must be interpreted as meaning that the expression ‘unemployed person ... who draws unemployment benefits under the legislation of a Member State’ also covers unemployed persons registered with the competent national authority whose entitlement to unemployment benefit has been suspended because compensation was paid to them by their employer by reason of the fact that the employment relationship was terminated without observance of a period of notice, or because payment of unemployment benefits in cash was temporarily excluded, in cases where, during that period of exclusion, they are covered against the risks of sickness and accidents under the legislation of the competent State.

Costs

26The costs incurred by the German and Spanish Governments, the United Kingdom and the Commission of the European Communities, which have submitted observations to the Court, are not recoverable. Since these proceedings are, for the parties to the main proceedings, a step in the proceedings pending before the national court, the decision on costs is a matter for that court.

Operative part

On those grounds,THE COURT (Sixth Chamber)in answer to the question referred to it by the Sozialgericht Stuttgart by order of 29 August 1994, hereby rules: Article 74 of Council Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71 of 14 June 1971 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 Council Regulation (EEC) No 2001/83 of 2 June 1983 and subsequently by Council Regulation (EEC) No 3427/89 of 30 October 1989, must be interpreted as meaning that the expression ‘unemployed person ... who draws unemployment benefits under the legislation of a Member State’ also covers unemployed persons registered with the competent national authority whose entitlement to unemployment benefit has been suspended because compensation was paid to them by their employer by reason of the fact that the employment relationship was terminated without observance of a period of notice, or because payment of unemployment benefits in cash was temporarily excluded, in cases where, during that period of exclusion, they are covered against the risks of sickness and accidents under the legislation of the competent State.

Delivered in open court in Luxembourg on 28 March 1996.