Brussels, 04/06/2009 (Agence Europe) - Union citizens that have established “real links” with the labour market of another member state may receive financial benefits to facilitate access to the job market, it is stated in a judgement of the Court of Justice of the European Communities on Thursday 4 June. The Court specifies that a real link with the labour market may be established without there necessarily being long term employment. It also stipulates that this principle applies to measures aimed at supporting the search for employment, although such measures come under a different name (Joint affairs C-22/08 and C-23/08).
The above court cases are between two Greek nationals and the Arbeitsgemeinschaft (ARGE) Nürnberg 900 (job centre in the town of Nürnberg). Messrs Vatsouras and Koupatantze had their basic job seeker allocations cancelled on the grounds that their professional activity on German territory was insufficient to allow them to be qualified as “workers”. The Sozialgericht Nürnberg, which had the matter referred to them by the claimants protesting cancellation of their benefits, asked the European Court of Justice whether ARGE's decision was valid. The Court replied that the activity of seeking work must be taken into account when assessing worker status, which is along the lines of the appeal by Vatsouras and Koupatantze.
ARGE, moreover, had stressed that the benefits in question were under social assistance, which would allow German authorities to depart from the obligation of granting equal assistance to nationals of other member states (Article 24, paragraph 2, of Directive 2004/38/EC on the free movement of persons). However, in Thursday's ruling, the Court explains that benefits must be classified according to their purpose, and not according to nomenclature. In the case in hand, as one of the conditions foreseen by German legislation is that the interested person must be able to work to benefit from the measures, it follows that these measures aim to support the search for employment. They are therefore not of a “social” kind. On the basis of this, the derogation invoked by ARGE does not apply to these measures - on the contrary, they must be made available to all European “workers” pursuant to Article 7, paragraph 3, of the above-mentioned directive. The matter has now been referred to the Sozialgericht Nürnberg. (C.D./transl.jl)