Who is entitled to family benefits? Lights and shadows of the ECJ rulings in WS and VR

Abstract

In WS and VR the Court of Justice interpreted the right to equal treatment afforded by EU law to third-country nationals holding a single permit or a long-term resident’s status as preventing national provisions which, differently from nationals and EU citizens, exclude their family members residing abroad from the calculation of a family unit allowance. While the two rulings upheld an established trend in Italian national case law, the reasoning of the Court raises critical concerns over the correct identification of the beneficiaries of family benefits. Thus, the interpretation supported by the Court is likely to restrict the scope of the right to equal treatment in an unexpected way. Having analysed the two judgments, the present paper discusses why the Court should have taken a different position in that specific regard.