(Case C‑217/08)

Article 104(3) of the Rules of Procedure – Equal treatment in employment matters – Articles 12 EC and 13 EC – Grant of survivor’s benefit – National rules providing for differences in treatment between surviving spouses and surviving cohabitees

Re:

Reference for a preliminary ruling – Tribunale Ordinario di Milano (Italy) – Interpretation of Articles 12 EC and 13 EC – Equal treatment in employment matters – Grant of survivor’s benefit – National rules providing for differences in treatment between surviving spouses and surviving partners who were in a life partnership.

Operative part

Community law does not impose a prohibition of all discrimination, the application of which the courts of Member States must ensure, where the allegedly discriminatory treatment has no link with Community law. In circumstances such as those at issue in the main proceedings, no such link arises from Articles 12 EC and 13 EC in themselves.

Those articles do not preclude, in those circumstances, national rules under which, in the event of the death of a person as a result of an accident, a pension amounting to 50% of the remuneration received by that person before his death is paid solely to his surviving spouse and the infant child of the deceased receives only a pension amounting to 20% of that remuneration.