12.9.2016

Official Journal of the European Union

C 335/18

(Case C-187/15) (<span class="super">1</span>)

((Reference for a preliminary ruling - Article 45 TFEU - Freedom of movement for workers - Civil servant of a Member State who has left the public service in order to be employed in another Member State - National legislation providing in that case for loss of the retirement pension rights acquired in the civil service and for retrospective insurance under the general old-age insurance scheme))

(2016/C 335/23)

Language of the case: German

Referring court

Parties to the main proceedings

Applicant: Joachim Pöpperl

Defendant: Land Nordrhein-Westfalen

Operative part of the judgment

1.Article 45 TFEU must be interpreted as precluding national legislation, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, under which a person having the status of civil servant in a Member State who leaves his post voluntarily in order to be employed in another Member State loses his retirement pension rights under the retirement pension scheme for civil servants and is insured retrospectively under the general old-age insurance scheme, conferring entitlement to a retirement pension lower than the retirement pension that would result from those rights.

2.Article 45 TFEU must be interpreted as meaning that is incumbent on the national court to give full effect to that article and to grant workers, in a situation such as that at issue in the main proceedings, retirement pension rights which are comparable to those of the civil servants who retain retirement pension rights corresponding, despite a change in public-sector employer, to the years of pensionable service that they have completed, by interpreting domestic law in conformity with that article or, if such an interpretation is not possible, by disapplying any contrary provision of domestic law in order to apply the same arrangements as those applicable to those civil servants.

(<span class="super">1</span>) OJ C 245, 27.7.2015.