Social security: unemployed persons

PREVIOUS COMMUNITY LEGISLATION: Regulation 1408/71/EEC its implementing Regulation 574/72/EEC down rules coordinating the different national social security schemes. This coor-dination system is designed to remove the adverse effects on social security coverage when employed and self-employed persons move within the Community. The system does not seek to harmonize the legislations on social protection in force in the Member States. Eight social security branches are covered by Regulation 1408/71/EEC and are listed in Article 4. Early retirement benefits fall outside the scope of the Regulation. As a result, if persons receiving early retirement benefits transfer their residence to another Member State they may have to forfeit their benefit. A right of exportation will exist only if the rules of the individual Member State provide the recipient of the early retirement benefit with such a right. If such a right does not exist under national law, the person receiving an early retirement benefit cannot move to another Member State, while maintaining his right to the benefit in question. PREVIOUS POSITION OF EP: In 1980 the Commission proposed (OJ C 189/80, p. 22) amendments similar to the present proposal. According to the 1980 proposal, which was never adopted by the Council, pre-retirement pensioners should be included under the scope of Regulation 1408/71/EEC. The EP generally approved the Commission's proposal in its Resolu-tion of 19 December 1980 (OJ C 346/80, p. 103). The EP later repeated its view, that the right to export pensions should include persons who have taken early retirement and who change their country of residence, in EP Resolution of 13 September 1990, (Part III, point f), (OJ C 260/90, p. 167), EP Resolution of 8 July 1992, (OJ C 241/92, p. 51) which refers to the Resolution of 13 September 1990, and in EP Resolution of 13 June 1995, (OJ C 166/95, p. 24). SITUATION IN THE MEMBER STATES: Since the end of the 1970s, a number of early retirement schemes have been used in the Member States as a tool in the fight against unemployment.