On Thursday 15 December, the Court of Justice of the European Union confirmed that under Community law, no difference could be made between the children and stepchildren of a cross-frontier worker, as long as the latter has contributed to the children’s maintenance
The key question the Court had to answer (C-401/15 to C-403/15) involved the way in which the parent-child relationship is defined and whether this should not be defined in legal or in economic terms. The decision to follow the former led to the Luxembourg authorities refusing to award educational grants to three children whose stepparents were cross-frontier workers employed in Luxembourg due to the reason that at a legal level this did not involve their “children” but only their “stepchildren”.
This decision was therefore successfully opposed by the interested parties. The Court of Justice of the European Union effectively followed to the letter the conclusions of Advocate General Melchior Wathelet (see EUROPE 11569). It also held that with regard to cross-frontier social benefits, the link between parents and children was not defined exclusively in legal terms but also economically. Therefore, the child of a stepparent who is a cross-frontier worker can claim social benefits when this said stepparent contributes to the child’s maintenance. A marriage certificate, registered partnership document or even a joint domicile can provide sufficient proof of this.
Although Luxembourg has, in the meantime, amended the disputed law by clearly stipulating that the children of cross-frontier workers can benefit from educational grants on the condition that the worker continues to contribute to the maintenance of the student, there is still no clear definition of what it means by “child”, a situation that could subsequently lead to further appeals.
Luxembourg has recently had to confront a number of increasing legal problems and its model for managing cross-frontier workers has already been successfully opposed (see EUROPE 11689). It should not be forgotten that another challenge will exist in the future involving the project to amend European legislation on the coordination of social security systems (see EUROPE 11688) and according to which Luxembourg would have to assume more responsibilities for unemployment allocations to cross-frontier workers. (Original version in French by Jan Kordys)