Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-03-11-Speech-4-010"
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"en.20040311.2.4-010"2
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".
Madam President, thank you very much. Unfortunately, we now have to return to our work, but I would like first of all to express my complete solidarity with what President Cox has just said.
This is the approach the Commission has taken in the negotiations of this Annex for the candidate countries and we believe it must be maintained in relation to the Member States.
Therefore, to remove the Dutch benefits from Annex IIa and to include the Swedish benefits would compromise the balance proposed by the Commission in relation to the Annex.
For all these reasons, the Commission can adopt Amendments Nos 1 to 3, as I have indicated, but not the others.
Madam President, the objective of the Commission's proposal today is to update Community Regulations (EEC) Nos 1408/71 and 574/72 in order to take account of the evolution of national legislations, to clarify the legal situation with regard to certain articles of these regulations and to take account of the recent judgments of the Court of Justice.
The present proposal, which is based on criteria endorsed by the Council, contains a new list of non-contributory benefits which are subject to specific coordination. This coordination, based on the principle of residence, was ratified by the Court of Justice in relation to the
case. In its judgment, the Court established, on the one hand, the non-exportability of the benefits in question and, on the other, the obligation of the new State of residence to grant benefits in its territory.
On the basis of this judgment it was essential to re-examine the list in Annex IIa in order to verify whether all the benefits fulfil the special and non-contributory criteria. In this regard, special benefits are those which are halfway between special security and social assistance and are principally aimed at guaranteeing, as a supplementary or additional sum, a social security benefit, a minimum subsistence income the amount of which is set in accordance with the socio-economic circumstances of the State of residence or those which are intended to ensure the specific protection of disabled people.
The examination of Annex IIa has demonstrated that many of the benefits currently appearing in it should not be maintained. I am talking about those which, despite being intended for people with disabilities, have the main objective of alleviating the dependency of these people, improving their state of health and living conditions with regard to people requiring special care.
What is the Commission's position on the amendments? I would like firstly to congratulate Mrs Gillig on her excellent report on a delicate and technically complex issue. The Commission can accept Parliament’s Amendments Nos 1 to 3, since the benefits indicated in them fulfil the criteria I mentioned previously.
The Commission, however, cannot accept Amendments Nos 4 to 8, whose objective is to exclude two Dutch benefits from Annex IIa: that for unfitness for work for young disabled people and supplementary sums or minimum incomes for receivers of social benefits. The Commission takes up these two proposals in its proposal, the first already appears in the current Annex IIa, because on examining its characteristics once again it notes that they are special non-contributory benefits.
Nevertheless, neither can the Commission accept Amendments Nos 9 to 12, which do not intend to exclude, but rather to include in Annex IIa, four benefits laid down in Swedish legislation, since they are family benefits and are therefore exportable. The regulation defines family benefits as those intended to compensate for family burdens and this definition was interpreted in a very broad way by the Court of Justice in the joined
and
cases.
With regard to Amendments Nos 4 to 12, which the Commission cannot accept, the Commission insists on the importance of treating all benefits, both those whose inclusion in Annex IIa is accepted and those which are excluded, in the same way in terms of analysing the special and non-contributory criteria."@en1
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