Opinion of Mr Advocate-General Reischl

Mr President,

Members of the Court,

Mrs Mazzier, nee Costa, the Plaintiff in the proceedings that have led to the reference at present before the Court was born in 1935 and is of Italian nationality. In July 1956 she commenced to reside in Belgium, where she is married to a Belgian worker employed in that country. As far as is known, Mrs Mazzier has never, either in Italy or in Belgium, been in paid employment. If I understand correctly, her only occupation is that of a housewife.

Mrs Mazzier instituted proceedings because she was denied an allowance for the handicapped, pursuant to the Belgian Law of 27 June 1969, for which she had applied in September 1971.

That Law is known to us from other cases. I shall not therefore have to give you long explanations in this respect. In relation to the present case it is important to remember:

Under the Law a claim to that allowance arises in case of Belgian citizens having their residence in Belgium provided they are at least fourteen years of age, that they have a permanent incapacity to work of at least 30 % and that their income does not exceed certain limits. This allowance — and of the three kinds of allowance we are in this case only concerned with the so-called ordinary allowance — is paid from state resources, if the beneficiaries are (in the case of men) below 65 years of age or (in the case of women) below 60 years of age. The amount of the allowance is assessed according to the degree of incapacity to work and the extent of income. Within certain limits, the allowance is also granted alongside social security benefits, with the exception however of benefits arising from insurance for accidents and sickness arising from work.

Obviously Mrs Mazzier — notwithstanding her medically established permanent incapacity to work, to an extent of 75 % — was unable to claim the allowance purely on the basis of the Belgian provisions. The competent authorities of the Belgian Ministry for Social Security believed however that even on the basis of the European Interim Agreement of 11 December 1953 on systems of social security schemes in respect of old age, invalidity and survivors, they could not award her the allowance. For according to Article 2 of this Agreement which enables the Belgian law to be applied to foreigners, it must be established that the person concerned was ordinarily resident in Belgium before the first diagnosis of the illness giving rise to the invalidity. On this point however, an expert in the proceedings before the national court established — and his findings are evidently not in dispute — that Mrs Mazzier's symptoms are the consequence of an illness which had already been found to exist in Italy in the year 1938, i.e. before the commencement of her residence in Belgium.

However, Mrs Mazzier does not consider the rejection by the Belgian Ministry for Social Security to be justified. She takes the view that in considering her case nationality is not relevant at all since under Article 7 of regulation No 1612/68 of 15 October 1968 on freedom of movement for workers within the Community (OJ L 257, 19. 10. 1968), a worker who is a national of a Member State shall within the territory of another Member State enjoy the same social and tax advantages as national workers.

Having regard to the provisions of Community law in the field of social security the Liege Labour Court, to which Mrs Mazzier had appealed, adjourned the proceedings by judgment of 29 March 1974 and pursuant to Article 177 of the EEC Treaty referred the following two questions for a preliminary ruling:

1 Translated from the German.