INFORMATION NOTE

In Administrative Notice No 58-2005 of 19 July 2005, staff were informed that on 23 June 2005, Mr Kallas sent a letter to the Permanent Representative of Belgium to the European Union, drawing the attention of the Belgian authorities to the issue of requests for the transfer of Belgian pension rights to the Community scheme made before 1 January 2002.

Following the entry into force of the Law of 10 February 2003, which affects transfer requests made to Community institutions from 1 January 2002, the transfer of pension rights is from now on calculated on the basis of the “surrender value” of pension contributions paid into Belgian national schemes.

The above-mentioned Administrative Notice stated that any major development on this matter would be communicated to staff.

In a letter of 19 October 2005 addressed to Mr Kallas, the Permanent Representative of Belgium to the European Union informed the Commission of the position of the Belgian Minister for Pensions on this matter.

According to the Pensions Minister, it is true that the calculation method stipulated by the Law of 10 February 2003 and the method stipulated in the Law of 21 May 1991 can generate different transfer amounts. Consequently, two people with the same career path in Belgium prior to their entry into service in the European Union may have a different number of annual contributions included in their Community pensions if they introduced their transfer requests on different dates.

According to the Pensions Minister, from the point of view of legal principles, this difference of treatment in no way undermines the principle of equal treatment because in this case the different treatment is applied to different situations. The differentiation between the two types of situation is made on the basis of a justifiable objective criterion, namely the date the transfer request was made.

In his reply of 17 November 2005 to the Permanent Representative of Belgium to the European Union, Mr Kallas took note of the Pensions Minister's position.

In the meantime, the Commission has replied on an individual basis to the many requests and complaints of discrimination in this matter lodged by officials, former officials and other servants. The Commission has examined the argument and has also come to the conclusion that there has been no discrimination. It has therefore rejected the requests and complaints.

An appeal has been brought against the Commission (Case T-361/05) before the Court of First Instance. As stated in Administrative Notice 65-2005 of 2 September 2005, the Commission has committed itself to undertaking an examination of requests from officials in a situation identical to that covered by the above-mentioned case in light of the judgment.