The Court of Justice of the European Union has confirmed, in its findings, that the Member State responsible for payment of a person’s old-age pension, within which Member State that person worked and paid contributions exclusively both before and after the transfer of their place of residence to another Member State where they raised their children, must take into account those child-raising periods when calculating the old-age pension, in a judgment handed down on Thursday 7 July (case C-576/20).
An Austrian citizen challenged the Austrian pension office’s refusal to treat periods of child-raising in Belgium and Hungary as periods of insurance and to take them into account in the calculation of her pension, even though periods of child-raising in Austria were taken into account. The mother of two was self-employed in Austria until she moved to Belgium, where two months later she gave birth to her first child. On her return to Austria from Hungary, she continued to care for these children by being affiliated to the Austrian social security system and, thirteen months later, she worked and contributed in that Member State until her retirement.
In its judgment, the Court rejects the exclusive nature of the provision of Regulation (987/2009) laying down the procedure for implementing Regulation (883/2004) on the coordination of national social security schemes. According to this provision, in order to take into account child-raising periods, the potential beneficiary of an old-age pension must be employed or self-employed when the first child-raising period begins.
The Court interprets EU law in the light of its wording, context and objectives. It notes that the contested provision codifies the case law (cases C-135/99 and C-28/00) and that at the time of its entry into force, the ‘Reichel-Albert’ judgment (case C-522/10) had not been delivered.
According to the European Court, interpreting the disputed provision exclusively would amount to disadvantaging an EU citizen solely on the grounds that he or she has exercised the right to free movement and would infringe this freedom enshrined in the Treaties (Article 21 TFEU).
In conclusion, the Court is of the opinion that, as in the ‘Reichel-Albert’ case, there is a sufficiently close link between the periods of child-rearing completed by the claimant abroad and the periods of insurance completed as a result of working in Austria. Therefore, it adds, Austrian legislation must be applied for the purposes of taking into account and crediting these periods with a view to granting an old-age pension.
See the judgment: https://aeur.eu/f/2jl (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)