Pub Date : 2023-09-14DOI: 10.1177/13882627231200355
Pauline Melin, Susanne Sivonen
In this casenote, the judgments in DRV Intertrans and Verbraeken (Joined Cases C-410/21 and C-661/21) and Thermalhotel Fontana (Case C-411/22) are discussed. DRV Intertrans and Verbraeken concerned a case of alleged fraudulent A1 certificates for posted workers. The issue was that those A1 certificates were only provisionally, as opposed to definitively, withdrawn by the issuing institution. As a result, the referring court in DRV Intertrans and Verbraken asked the Court of Justice whether the courts of the Member State where the work was carried out could consider the provisional withdrawal of the A1 certificates by the issuing institution as rendering those A1 certificate non-binding. Alternatively, the referring court asked whether it could disregard those A1 certificates following the Altun jurisprudence of the Court of Justice. Thermalhotel Fontana involved isolation measures being imposed on frontier workers by their Member State of residence, making them unable to work. The specific legal issue at hand in Thermalhotel Fontana concerned the fact that the employer of those frontier workers was not able to get compensation from Austria, the Member State of establishment, for his employees due to the fact that the isolation measures were not taken by Austria but by the Member States of residence of the frontier workers. Considering that this case did not fall within the scope of Regulation 883/2004, the Court examined it under the principle of equal treatment of EU workers.
{"title":"Overview of recent cases before the Court of Justice of the European Union (January–June 2023)","authors":"Pauline Melin, Susanne Sivonen","doi":"10.1177/13882627231200355","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13882627231200355","url":null,"abstract":"In this casenote, the judgments in DRV Intertrans and Verbraeken (Joined Cases C-410/21 and C-661/21) and Thermalhotel Fontana (Case C-411/22) are discussed. DRV Intertrans and Verbraeken concerned a case of alleged fraudulent A1 certificates for posted workers. The issue was that those A1 certificates were only provisionally, as opposed to definitively, withdrawn by the issuing institution. As a result, the referring court in DRV Intertrans and Verbraken asked the Court of Justice whether the courts of the Member State where the work was carried out could consider the provisional withdrawal of the A1 certificates by the issuing institution as rendering those A1 certificate non-binding. Alternatively, the referring court asked whether it could disregard those A1 certificates following the Altun jurisprudence of the Court of Justice. Thermalhotel Fontana involved isolation measures being imposed on frontier workers by their Member State of residence, making them unable to work. The specific legal issue at hand in Thermalhotel Fontana concerned the fact that the employer of those frontier workers was not able to get compensation from Austria, the Member State of establishment, for his employees due to the fact that the isolation measures were not taken by Austria but by the Member States of residence of the frontier workers. Considering that this case did not fall within the scope of Regulation 883/2004, the Court examined it under the principle of equal treatment of EU workers.","PeriodicalId":44670,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Social Security","volume":"66 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135552560","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-14DOI: 10.1177/13882627231200343
Eleni De Becker
In this case law report (January 2023 – May 2023) three cases before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and two cases (September 2022 – May 2023) before the European Committee of Social Rights (ECSR) will be discussed. 1 The first two cases before the ECtHR are discussed together, as they tackle the partial annulment by the Spanish Constitutional Court of the legislation on survivor's pensions. The judgment imposed the same conditions for accessing a survivor's pension for partners in a civil partnership all over Spain. In both cases, the ECtHR ruled that Spain breached Article 1 Additional Protocol European Convention on Human Rights (AP ECHR). The third case that will be discussed also concerns a survivor's pension. In Bosiljevac v. Croatia, the ECHR found a violation of the right to a fair trial in Article 6 ECHR. The case concerns the expert reports used in administrative proceedings in which the applicant sought, on account of his medical condition, to be granted a survivor's pension following the death of this father. Lastly, two cases before the ECSR will be presented. Panhellenic Association of Pensioners of the OTE Group Telecommunications v. Greece concerns a series of pension reforms introduced in Greece. The ECSR did not hold in favour of the applicant, who argued that those reforms violated, inter alia, the right to social security in Article 12 of the Revised European Social Charter (ESC). The last case ( Finnish Society of Social Rights v. Finland) concerns the minimum level of several social security and social assistance benefits in Finland. The ECSR agreed with the applicant and held that the benefits granted were inadequate and violated the right to social security and the right to social assistance in Article 12, § 1 and Article 13, § 1 ESC.
{"title":"Overview of recent cases before the European Court of Human Rights (January – May 2023) and the European Committee of Social Rights (September 2022 – May 2023)","authors":"Eleni De Becker","doi":"10.1177/13882627231200343","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13882627231200343","url":null,"abstract":"In this case law report (January 2023 – May 2023) three cases before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and two cases (September 2022 – May 2023) before the European Committee of Social Rights (ECSR) will be discussed. 1 The first two cases before the ECtHR are discussed together, as they tackle the partial annulment by the Spanish Constitutional Court of the legislation on survivor's pensions. The judgment imposed the same conditions for accessing a survivor's pension for partners in a civil partnership all over Spain. In both cases, the ECtHR ruled that Spain breached Article 1 Additional Protocol European Convention on Human Rights (AP ECHR). The third case that will be discussed also concerns a survivor's pension. In Bosiljevac v. Croatia, the ECHR found a violation of the right to a fair trial in Article 6 ECHR. The case concerns the expert reports used in administrative proceedings in which the applicant sought, on account of his medical condition, to be granted a survivor's pension following the death of this father. Lastly, two cases before the ECSR will be presented. Panhellenic Association of Pensioners of the OTE Group Telecommunications v. Greece concerns a series of pension reforms introduced in Greece. The ECSR did not hold in favour of the applicant, who argued that those reforms violated, inter alia, the right to social security in Article 12 of the Revised European Social Charter (ESC). The last case ( Finnish Society of Social Rights v. Finland) concerns the minimum level of several social security and social assistance benefits in Finland. The ECSR agreed with the applicant and held that the benefits granted were inadequate and violated the right to social security and the right to social assistance in Article 12, § 1 and Article 13, § 1 ESC.","PeriodicalId":44670,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Social Security","volume":"2013 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135552344","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-14DOI: 10.1177/13882627231201481
Marco Biasi
{"title":"Book Review: <i>The Cambridge Handbook of Labour in Competition Law</i> by Sanjukta Paul, Shae McCrystal, Ewan McGaughey","authors":"Marco Biasi","doi":"10.1177/13882627231201481","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13882627231201481","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44670,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Social Security","volume":"14 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135552733","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-01DOI: 10.1177/13882627231200743
abhishek Abhishek
{"title":"Books Review: <i>Rethinking Welfare and the Welfare State</i> by Bent Greve","authors":"abhishek Abhishek","doi":"10.1177/13882627231200743","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13882627231200743","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44670,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Social Security","volume":"49 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135388508","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-30DOI: 10.1177/13882627231191265
Alger Kurti
{"title":"Books Reviews: <i>Participation Income: An Alternative to Basic Income for Poverty Reduction in the Digital Age</i> by Heikki Hiilamo","authors":"Alger Kurti","doi":"10.1177/13882627231191265","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13882627231191265","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44670,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Social Security","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136144044","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-17DOI: 10.1177/13882627231195724
Tuuli Hirvilammi, Juha Peltomaa, Matti Pihlajamaa, S. Tiilikainen
In eco-welfare states, welfare provision must operate within planetary boundaries, entailing societal transformations and significant emission reductions. This article contributes to the research on sustainable welfare and eco-social policies by examining transformative and integrative eco-social initiatives that aim to reduce environmental impacts while also ensuring that public actors have the capacities to reach legally binding social outcomes and enhance social inclusion. Theoretically, we combine welfare state transformation research with the concepts of social-ecological systems, provisioning systems and transformative capacity. Our empirical cases in Finland include public actors promoting sustainable public procurement, a network of carbon-neutral municipalities, sustainable lifestyles accelerators at the household level, and carbon footprint calculators as a potential free-to-use technique that supports widespread carbon reductions. We apply a qualitative research design to investigate what kinds of factors are crucial in enhancing the transformative capacity of provisioning systems and how various factors in practice enable the eco-social initiatives to support the transformation towards an eco-welfare state. Our findings identify key enabling factors for transformative capacity: social networks, collaboration and participation; knowledge, learning and monitoring; shared policy frameworks and visions; and financial resources. These factors are interrelated and can be brought to bear in no particular sequence. The results offer valuable insights into how welfare state characteristics with democratically governed public actors may facilitate transformation.
{"title":"Towards an eco-welfare state: Enabling factors for transformative eco-social initiatives","authors":"Tuuli Hirvilammi, Juha Peltomaa, Matti Pihlajamaa, S. Tiilikainen","doi":"10.1177/13882627231195724","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13882627231195724","url":null,"abstract":"In eco-welfare states, welfare provision must operate within planetary boundaries, entailing societal transformations and significant emission reductions. This article contributes to the research on sustainable welfare and eco-social policies by examining transformative and integrative eco-social initiatives that aim to reduce environmental impacts while also ensuring that public actors have the capacities to reach legally binding social outcomes and enhance social inclusion. Theoretically, we combine welfare state transformation research with the concepts of social-ecological systems, provisioning systems and transformative capacity. Our empirical cases in Finland include public actors promoting sustainable public procurement, a network of carbon-neutral municipalities, sustainable lifestyles accelerators at the household level, and carbon footprint calculators as a potential free-to-use technique that supports widespread carbon reductions. We apply a qualitative research design to investigate what kinds of factors are crucial in enhancing the transformative capacity of provisioning systems and how various factors in practice enable the eco-social initiatives to support the transformation towards an eco-welfare state. Our findings identify key enabling factors for transformative capacity: social networks, collaboration and participation; knowledge, learning and monitoring; shared policy frameworks and visions; and financial resources. These factors are interrelated and can be brought to bear in no particular sequence. The results offer valuable insights into how welfare state characteristics with democratically governed public actors may facilitate transformation.","PeriodicalId":44670,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Social Security","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-08-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47932087","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-31DOI: 10.1177/13882627231190495
Kristina Koldinská
{"title":"Book Review: Welfare States in the 21st Century: The New Five Giants Confronting Societal Progress by Ian Greener","authors":"Kristina Koldinská","doi":"10.1177/13882627231190495","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13882627231190495","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44670,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Social Security","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43462144","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-09DOI: 10.1177/13882627231185988
H. Verschueren
There is a growing tendency for the EU Member States to introduce conditions relating to the right to social benefits that are mostly disadvantageous to third-country nationals. These conditions are at risk of conflicting with provisions on the right to equal treatment with the nationals of the host country, as set down in a number of EU migration directives. This is all the more the case now that the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has recently given a broad interpretation of these provisions. Consequently, the Member States are to take these provisions as well as the CJEU's case law into account when seeking to limit access to social benefits for third-country nationals. This article examines the content and meaning of these provisions and the relevant case law of the CJEU. It concludes that it is apparent from this case law that the main objective of the right to equal treatment in these directives is to promote the integration of said third-country nationals into the host country and, therefore, the Member States may not make this right dependent on a prior sufficient level of integration in that host country.
{"title":"Equal treatment as an instrument of integration. The CJEU's case law on social rights for third-country nationals under the EU migration directives","authors":"H. Verschueren","doi":"10.1177/13882627231185988","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13882627231185988","url":null,"abstract":"There is a growing tendency for the EU Member States to introduce conditions relating to the right to social benefits that are mostly disadvantageous to third-country nationals. These conditions are at risk of conflicting with provisions on the right to equal treatment with the nationals of the host country, as set down in a number of EU migration directives. This is all the more the case now that the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has recently given a broad interpretation of these provisions. Consequently, the Member States are to take these provisions as well as the CJEU's case law into account when seeking to limit access to social benefits for third-country nationals. This article examines the content and meaning of these provisions and the relevant case law of the CJEU. It concludes that it is apparent from this case law that the main objective of the right to equal treatment in these directives is to promote the integration of said third-country nationals into the host country and, therefore, the Member States may not make this right dependent on a prior sufficient level of integration in that host country.","PeriodicalId":44670,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Social Security","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45960153","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-15DOI: 10.1177/13882627231176537
S. Gronchi, Sergio Nisticò, Mirko Bevilacqua
The aim of the paper is twofold. First, it addresses the delicate issue of divisor obsolescence within Non-financial Defined Contribution (NDC) pension schemes. It suggests a method to measure the impact of this obsolescence, referring to the Swedish mechanism of diversifying divisors by birth cohort. Given the serious impact of divisor obsolescence on the fairness and sustainability of NDC systems, the paper also proposes possible solutions to limit this impact. The second aim is to analyze the shortcomings of the Italian system in the light of the challenge to NDC architecture resulting from the obsolescence of divisors. The first anomaly is the current mechanism of periodical revision of the divisors, which prevents Italian workers from planning their retirement on the basis of definite and unchanging information. The second is the extremely wide retirement age range due to the existence of seniority pensions: this needs to be replaced by a small retirement age range with a sufficiently high and rigorous lower bound. Finally, the paper focuses on the need for all NDC systems to compute new divisors based on a much lower frontloading rate, as has recently been done in Norway. It finally suggests that the severe reductions in the replacement rates implied by a lower ‘frontloading’ can be avoided by either removing the survivors benefit from the old-age scheme or by giving workers the option to choose it ‘at their own expense’, as in the second pillar.
{"title":"Increasing longevity, NDC implementation in Italy and Sweden, and all that","authors":"S. Gronchi, Sergio Nisticò, Mirko Bevilacqua","doi":"10.1177/13882627231176537","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13882627231176537","url":null,"abstract":"The aim of the paper is twofold. First, it addresses the delicate issue of divisor obsolescence within Non-financial Defined Contribution (NDC) pension schemes. It suggests a method to measure the impact of this obsolescence, referring to the Swedish mechanism of diversifying divisors by birth cohort. Given the serious impact of divisor obsolescence on the fairness and sustainability of NDC systems, the paper also proposes possible solutions to limit this impact. The second aim is to analyze the shortcomings of the Italian system in the light of the challenge to NDC architecture resulting from the obsolescence of divisors. The first anomaly is the current mechanism of periodical revision of the divisors, which prevents Italian workers from planning their retirement on the basis of definite and unchanging information. The second is the extremely wide retirement age range due to the existence of seniority pensions: this needs to be replaced by a small retirement age range with a sufficiently high and rigorous lower bound. Finally, the paper focuses on the need for all NDC systems to compute new divisors based on a much lower frontloading rate, as has recently been done in Norway. It finally suggests that the severe reductions in the replacement rates implied by a lower ‘frontloading’ can be avoided by either removing the survivors benefit from the old-age scheme or by giving workers the option to choose it ‘at their own expense’, as in the second pillar.","PeriodicalId":44670,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Social Security","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48606201","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-01DOI: 10.1177/13882627231187609
Renate Reiter
Active social and employment services are a crucial infrastructure of the welfare state. As these services are designed to help people in need of support to overcome periods of insecurity in their life course, their effective provision has also been seen as an element of the implementation of the social investment (SI) welfare state. However, the transition to the SI state is linked to numerous preconditions. This is especially true with regard to vulnerable people like the long-term unemployed (LTU). The provision of social services that meet the specific needs of this group requires the actors responsible for implementing social and employment policies to have adequate operative capacities. This article compares Germany and France as two European welfare states that – confronted with persistently high long-term unemployment – have taken different reform paths over the last 20 years that partly run counter to their political-administrative systemic conditions and governance traditions to meet this challenge. Empirically, the article draws on a systematic content analysis of selected policy documents and secondary literature. It is shown that the recent German reform path of combining central steering responsibility with local scope for action can be a way to come closer to a social investment-oriented service policy for the LTU. However, the article also reveals that neither state (yet) has the necessary operative capacities for a shift towards an SI state. Overall, the changes in the understanding of the SI paradigm and the welfare state's constant reluctance to invest in implementation capacity make its sustainable application unlikely.
{"title":"Critical infrastructure of social and labour market integration: Capacitating the implementation of social service policies to the long-term unemployed in Germany and France?","authors":"Renate Reiter","doi":"10.1177/13882627231187609","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13882627231187609","url":null,"abstract":"Active social and employment services are a crucial infrastructure of the welfare state. As these services are designed to help people in need of support to overcome periods of insecurity in their life course, their effective provision has also been seen as an element of the implementation of the social investment (SI) welfare state. However, the transition to the SI state is linked to numerous preconditions. This is especially true with regard to vulnerable people like the long-term unemployed (LTU). The provision of social services that meet the specific needs of this group requires the actors responsible for implementing social and employment policies to have adequate operative capacities. This article compares Germany and France as two European welfare states that – confronted with persistently high long-term unemployment – have taken different reform paths over the last 20 years that partly run counter to their political-administrative systemic conditions and governance traditions to meet this challenge. Empirically, the article draws on a systematic content analysis of selected policy documents and secondary literature. It is shown that the recent German reform path of combining central steering responsibility with local scope for action can be a way to come closer to a social investment-oriented service policy for the LTU. However, the article also reveals that neither state (yet) has the necessary operative capacities for a shift towards an SI state. Overall, the changes in the understanding of the SI paradigm and the welfare state's constant reluctance to invest in implementation capacity make its sustainable application unlikely.","PeriodicalId":44670,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Social Security","volume":"25 1","pages":"158 - 177"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46810293","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}