Social security: unemployed persons

The rapporteur confirmed her support for the Commission’s proposal aimed at allowing the unemployed to search for a job in another Member State without losing their entitlement to unemployment benefits. Commissioner Flynn welcomed the positive attitude of Parliament which shared the Commission’s opinion that unemployed persons should be able to spend more than three months in another Member State. He particularly endorsed the three amendments proposed by the rapporteur which provided for: extension of the scope to students, deletion of the exception for Belgium (in accordance with the Court of Justice’s very narrow interpretation in the ‘Spataro’ judgment of the previous June) and reduction to five years of the ten-year transitional period for Luxembourg.