Albert Hoorn v Landesversicherungsanstalt Westfalen.

• Jurisdiction: European Union
• Celex Number: 61992CC0305
• ECLI: ECLI:EU:C:1993:315
• Docket Number: C-305/92
• Court: Court of Justice (European Union)
• Procedure Type: Reference for a preliminary ruling
• Date: 14 July 1993

Important legal notice

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61992C0305

Opinion of Mr Advocate General Tesauro delivered on 14 July 1993. - Albert Hoorn v Landesversicherungsanstalt Westfalen. - Reference for a preliminary ruling: Sozialgericht Münster - Germany. - Old-age pension in respect of forced labour in Germany during the Second World War. - Case C-305/92.

European Court reports 1994 Page I-01525

Opinion of the Advocate-General

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Mr President,

Members of the Court,

1. This case has come before the Court by way of a reference for a preliminary ruling under Article 177 of the EEC Treaty by the Sozialgericht (Social Court), Muenster, in the context of the proceedings pending before that court between Mr Hoorn and the Landesversicherungsanstalt Westfalen (Regional Insurance Office for Westphalia).

The question referred to the Court essentially turns on whether a complementary agreement to the Convention on Social Insurance of 29 March 1951 between the Federal Republic of Germany and the Kingdom of the Netherlands is compatible with Articles 48(2) and 51 of the EEC Treaty and Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71 on the application of social security schemes to employed persons, to self-employed persons and to members of their families moving within the Community. (1) More particularly the case concerns Complementary Agreement No 4 of 21 December 1956 on the settlement of rights acquired between 13 May 1940 and 1 September 1945 by Dutch workers under the German social insurance scheme.

2. For present purposes it should be recalled that Article 2(1) thereof provides that periods of insurance completed between 13 May 1940 and 1 September 1945 by Dutch workers under the German pension insurance scheme are to be taken into account as if they had been completed under the legislation of the Netherlands, if the persons concerned ceased working before 1 September 1945 and returned to the Netherlands by 31 December 1945. Under paragraph 2 of that article, Netherlands nationals not previously affiliated to the Netherlands social insurance scheme were to be deemed so affiliated from the date on which they began to work in Germany; that provision, it should however be stated, is to apply only if it results in a more favourable outcome for the person concerned.

3. I come now to the facts underlying the present proceedings.

By a decision of 24 November 1989 the Landesversicherungsanstalt, Westphalia, under Article 2(1) of the aforementioned Complementary Agreement, dismissed the request for an old-age pension submitted by Mr Hoorn, a Netherlands citizen who had been forced to work in a factory in Dortmund, Germany, during the Second World War, from 31 July 1943 to 31 March 1945.

Mr Hoorn contested that decision, contending in the first place that Complementary Agreement No 4 was no longer applicable to him under Article 2(2) thereof.

He pointed out that following the reform of social security legislation carried out in the Netherlands by means of a series of laws which entered into force between 1957 and 1967 the rights acquired under the earlier system by workers to whom an old-age pension had not yet been granted were commuted by the payment of a pro tanto sum in redemption of the insurance periods covered by the previous system. The application thereof meant that Mr Hoorn received an amount significantly less than the income which he would have been granted under the German invalidity and old-age insurance scheme: for that reason Complementary Agreement No 4 is alleged not to apply to the present case, inasmuch as under the reservation mentioned in Article 2(2), the...