Brussels, 14/04/2015 (Agence Europe) - The Court of Justice of the EU ruled on Tuesday 14 April that Spanish legislation on the calculation of permanent invalidity pensions complies with EU law. It determined (in case C-527/13) that the law does not present any direct or indirect discrimination based on gender, even though the corrective mechanism it contains for calculating pensions results in reducing the amount of the permanent invalidity pension granted to certain part-time workers, most of whom are women.
The corrective mechanism allows periods during which the insured person has not paid contributions to the social security scheme during the reference period of eight years preceding the date of the event giving rise to the invalidity to be built into the calculation of the amount of the pension. Thus, if a worker ceased his/her professional activity immediately after a period of full-time employment, the contribution applicable to periods of full-time employment is to be taken into account. By contrast, if the person concerned was working part-time during the period immediately prior to the moment when his/her contribution payments were interrupted, the integration of the periods during which that person did not pay contributions is to be calculated using a reduced contribution: the reduction is the result of applying the part-time work coefficient.
In his opinion, Advocate General Yves Bot formed the view that this corrective mechanism worked to the detriment of part-time workers compared with those working full-time (Directive 97/81/EC) and led to indirect gender-based discrimination (contrary to Directive 79/7/EEC), given that the vast majority of part-time workers in Spain are women (see EUROPE 11173).
On 14 April, the Court went against that interpretation. It ruled that the Spanish law is not discriminatory, whether directly, since it applies without distinction to both male and female workers, or indirectly, since it does not disadvantage “predominantly” a particular category of workers - in this case those working part-time - nor, in particular, women. The Spanish law does not apply to all part-time workers, but only to workers who, after a period of part-time employment, have had a gap in their contributions during the reference period of eight years preceding the date of the event giving rise to the invalidity. Moreover, the Court notes, it is possible that some part-time workers may also benefit from the Spanish law in cases where they worked only part-time for the remainder of the calculation period or even throughout their entire working lives, but the last contract that preceded professional inactivity is a full-time contract.
As for gender-based discrimination, the Court found that general statistical data concerning the group of part-time workers, taken as a whole, are not relevant to establish that many more women than men are affected by the law at issue. (Francesco Gariazzo)