INVALIDITY PENSIONS
Case C-527/13, Lourdes Cachaldora Fernández v Instituto Nacional de la Seguridad Social (INSS) and Tesorería General de la Seguridad Social (TGSS), 14 April 2015
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that Spanish legislation on the calculation of permanent invalidity pensions is compatible with European Union law.
In the present case, the Spanish legislation provides a corrective mechanism in order to calculate permanent invalidity pensions if, during some months of that reference period, the person concerned has not paid contributions to the social security scheme. The coefficient applied depends on whether the person was working full-time or part-time.
The Tribunal Superior de Justicia de Galicia who had rule on the case asked the ECJ whether the Spanish methods for calculating the concerned pensions comply with Article 4 of EU Directive 79/7 on the progressive implementation of the principle of equal treatment for men and women in matters of social security.
The ECJ first pointed out that the Spanish law is not applicable to all part-time workers, but only to workers who, after a period of part-time employment, have had a gap in their contributions during the reference period of eight years preceding the date of the event which gives rise to the invalidity.
Moreover, according to the ECJ, it is possible that some part-time workers may also benefit from the Spanish law in cases where they worked only part-time during a certain period although their last contract was a full-time contract. Such workers will benefit from the law since they will receive a pension that is overvalued in relation to the contributions that they actually paid.
Hence, the ECJ considered the Spanish law cannot be classified as a discriminatory measure, either directly (the law applies without distinction to both male and female workers) or indirectly (the law does not disadvantage a category of workers).
