45First, during the pre-litigation procedure, having consistently stated that the benefits at issue were ‘social security benefits’, within the meaning of Article 3(1) of Regulation No 883/2004, which should therefore be exportable, the Commission clearly conferred on them the legal classification that it considered appropriate and thereby identified the subject-matter of the dispute. In so far as the concept of ‘social security benefit’, within the meaning of Article 3(1) thereof, and the concept of ‘special non-contributory cash benefits’, within the meaning of Article 3(2) and 70 of that regulation, are mutually exclusive (judgment in Hosse, C‑286/03, EU:C:2006:125, paragraph 36), the Commission’s argument as to the inapplicability of Article 70 to the benefits at issue, raised during the pre-litigation procedure, falls within the scope of the dispute thus delimited, without extending it.
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