Economically inactive EU citizens in other Member State solely to obtain social assistance may be excluded from social benefits

Decision has been issued in the Dano case, with headline finding that In Germany, foreign nationals who enter national territory in order to obtain social assistance or whose right of residence arises solely out of the search for employment are excluded from benefits by way of basic provision (‘Grundsicherung’) , which are intended in particular to cover the recipients’ subsistence costs

Link to press release through which you can link to full judgement.
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here’s the BBC and the Guardian’s take on it:

EU court ruling backs curbs on ‘benefit tourism’
Germany can deny benefits to jobless EU migrants, court rules

I have only had a quick read of this but I’m not sure it does what it says on the tin. In the press release thing it says “foreign nationals who enter national territory in order to obtain social assistance or whose right of residence arises solely out of the search for employment are excluded from benefits by way of basic provision”. Reading the judgement I think the first bit is right but the second bit wrong.

The judgement seems to say social assistance can be denied to people who are not workers, self employed or their family because art 24 of the residence directive only protects them from discrimination on this. So its okay to refuse social assistance to economically inactive people.

However SNCBs do not come under this “special non-contributory cash benefits’ as referred to in Article 70(2) of Regulation No 883/2004 do fall within the concept of ‘social assistance’ within the meaning of Article 24(2) of Directive 2004/38” (para 63 of the judgement).

They then say that art 4 (equal treatment) of the coordination regulation is engaged in respect of the SNCBs but you need to have a r2r to use this:

“The benefits at issue in the main proceedings, which constitute ‘special non-contributory cash benefits’ within the meaning of Article 70(2) of the regulation, are, under Article 70(4), to be provided exclusively in the Member State in which the persons concerned reside, in accordance with its legislation. It follows that there is nothing to prevent the grant of such benefits to Union citizens who are not economically active from being made subject to the requirement that those citizens fulfil the conditions for obtaining a right of residence under Directive 2004/38” (para 83)

Dano herself wasn’t looking for a job but wouldn’t someone who was have r2r under art14 and therefore meet the conditions for the SNCB such as JSA?

Article on Dano by Desmond Rutledge, Barrister @ Garden Court Chambers ...

Dano and the exclusion of inactive EU citizens from certain non-contributory social benefits