The New EU Coordination System for Workers Who Become Unemployed

Abstract

The aim of this article is to discuss the chapter on unemployment benefits in Regulation (EC) 883/04 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 on the coordination of social security schemes. This regulation is part of the ongoing simplification and modernisation of the coordination of Member States' social security schemes and will probably become applicable in 2009. The article illustrates the principal differences between the unemployment chapter of this new regulation and the existing provisions in Regulation 1408/71, and explains some of the difficulties encountered in the attempt to modernise and simplify these rules. It also shows why the extensive case-law of the Court on the provisions in the unemployment chapter of Regulation 1408/71 continues to be useful in the interpretation of the unemployment chapter of the new Regulation 883/04, since this chapter is, to a large extent, based on the provisions of the first Regulation.