The Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has delivered an opinion stating that Ireland was incorrect in refusing to grant a disability allowance to a Romanian woman on the grounds that she would impose an ‘unreasonable burden’ on the state.
GV is a national of Romania and the mother of AC, a Romanian citizen residing and working in Ireland on the basis of the European principle of free movement of workers across European Union states. AC is also a naturalised Irish citizen. GV joined her daughter in Ireland in 2017 and has legally resided there ever since. During the past 15 years, she has been financially dependent on AC.
In 2017, GV suffered degenerative changes in her arthritis, after which she made an application for Disability Allowance under the Irish Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005. That request was refused on the ground that under the relevant Irish law, GV must not become an unreasonable burden on the national social assistance system. The Irish Court of Appeal then asked the Court of Justice whether the EU Citizenship Directive 1 precludes Irish legislation that allows such refusal.
In her Opinion , the Advocate General considered that the European Court should embrace a broad concept of family dependency, which should be deemed to exist whenever a person is in need of the material, financial, physical or emotional support of a family member. Therefore, even if the mother would no longer need the financial support of her daughter, she might still fulfil the requirement of dependency on which the derived right of residence is based. For that reason, the Member State award of financial support does not terminate the dependency of the supported person.
Further, the Citizenship Directive is the result of a legislative consensus at the EU level about the acceptable balance between the interests of free movement or workers between EU states and the concerns for the welfare systems of the Member States. The outcome of that consensus is that neither mobile EU workers nor their dependent direct relatives residing legally in a Member State can be regarded as an unreasonable burden by that State. In accordance with the principle of equal treatment, such family members are an (un)reasonable burden only in the same way as nationals of that State would be an (un)reasonable burden.
Consequently, a Member State cannot refuse access to special non-contributory cash benefits to dependent direct relatives of mobile EU workers on the ground that they represent an unreasonable burden on the social assistance system of that State.
Click here to read the full Opinion in the case.