(January 15, 2015)

On January 15, 2015 the European Court of Justice (CJEU) ruled in Case C-179/13, Raad van bestuur van de Sociale verzekeringsbank versus L.F. Evans (ECLI:EU:C:2015:12).

The following questions were referred to the CJEU for a preliminary ruling: 

1. Must Article 2 and/or Article 16 of Regulation No 1408/71 be construed as meaning that a person like Ms Evans, who is a national of a Member State, who exercised her right of freedom of movement for workers, to whom the social security legislation of the Netherlands was applicable and who then went to work as a member of the service staff of the Consulate General of the United States of America in the Netherlands, from the commencement of such work no longer falls under the personal scope of Regulation No 1408/71?

    

   If not:

    

2.  

   1. Must Article 3 of Regulation No 1408/71 and/or Article 7(2) of Regulation No 1612/68 be construed as meaning that the application of privileged status to Ms Evans, which in this case consists inter alia of not being compulsorily insured for the purposes of social security and of not paying contributions in that regard, should be considered a sufficient justification for discriminating on grounds of nationality?

       

   2. What significance must be attached in that regard to the fact that in December 1999, Ms Evans, when asked, opted for the continuation of the privileged status?

The CJEU ruled as follows:

Article 2 of Council Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71 of 14 June 1971 on the application of social security schemes to employed persons, to self-employed persons and to members of their families moving within the Community, in the version amended and updated by Council Regulation (EC) No 118/97 of 2 December 1996, as amended by Regulation (EC) No 1992/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2006, read in conjunction with Article 16 of that regulation, should be construed as meaning that, for the period during which a national of a Member State has been employed at a consular post of a third State within the territory of a Member State of which he is not a national but within whose territory he resides, that national is not subject to the legislation of a Member State within the meaning of this provision if, by virtue of the legislation of his Member State of residence, adopted pursuant to Article 71(2) of the Vienna Convention on consular relations, concluded at Vienna on 24 April 1963, he is not affiliated to the national social security scheme.

For further information click here to be forwarded to the text of the ruling as published on the website of the Court of Justice, which will open in a new window.

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