A cross-border worker is not required to have registered in Luxembourg a declaration of civil partnership (PACS), registered with a French Court, in order to receive a survivor’s pension in the event of the death of his or her partner caused by an accident at work, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled on Thursday 8 December (Case C-731/21).
The Luxembourg insurance fund refuses to grant a survivor’s pension to the partner of a deceased cross-border worker on the grounds that their civil partnership in France was not registered in the Luxembourg civil register during the lifetime of the two contracting parties and that, consequently, it cannot be relied on against third parties.
Referred to by the Luxembourg Court of Cassation, the CJEU ruled in favour of the plaintiff. It considers that the Luxembourg legislation imposes a condition on a partnership validly concluded and registered in another Member State, which is not imposed on a partnership concluded in Luxembourg, which is automatically entered in the registers. This results in indirect discrimination which affects cross-border workers in particular.
It is certainly legitimate for a Member State to ensure that a survivor’s pension is paid to a person who can prove that he or she is the rightful beneficiary, the European Court said. It notes that the refusal to grant a survivor’s pension on the grounds that the civil partnership on which it is based is not registered in Luxembourg goes beyond what is necessary to achieve this objective. According to the Court, it would be sufficient to produce an official document from the competent authority of the Member State in which the contract was concluded.
In any case, the Court concluded, the registration of the civil partnership in Luxembourg could still be carried out on the date it is requested.
See the Court’s judgment: https://aeur.eu/f/4l6 (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)