Brexit and German social security

Brexit

Berlin [ENA] Ger­many’s social insur­ance sys­tem is prepar­ing for different sce­nar­ios concerning Brexit and has pub­lished infor­ma­tion for insured per­sons, employ­ers, work­ers and ser­vice providers. It is certainly a Political dilemma because on 15 Jan­u­ary 2019, the UK’s House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives rejected the Brexit agree­ment nego­ti­ated with the Euro­pean Union by a large major­ity.

The ref­er­en­dum in June 2016, in which a small major­ity of UK cit­i­zens voted in favour of the UK leav­ing the EU, and the UK for­mally invok­ing Arti­cle 50 on 29 March 2017 was the tremendous precedent of international law. UK politi­cians are yet to find a new solu­tion to the Brexit dilemma. The var­i­ous branches of Ger­many’s social insur­ance sys­tem have pub­lished infor­ma­tion on the var­i­ous sce­nar­ios. In case of the withdrawal agreement being accepted, the Reg­u­la­tions on the coor­di­na­tion of social secu­rity sys­tems, namely Reg­u­la­tions (EC) No 883/ 2004, (EC) No 987/ 2009 and (EC) No 859/ 2003, together with (EEC) No 1408/ 71 would be applied for a tran­si­tional period until 31 Decem­ber 2020.

The var­i­ous branches of Ger­many’s social insur­ance sys­tem have pub­lished infor­ma­tion on the var­i­ous sce­nar­ios. In case of the withdrawal agreement being accepted, the Reg­u­la­tions on the coor­di­na­tion of social secu­rity sys­tems, namely Reg­u­la­tions (EC) No 883/ 2004, (EC) No 987/ 2009 and (EC) No 859/ 2003, together with (EEC) No 1408/ 71 would be applied for a tran­si­tional period until 31 Decem­ber 2020. There’ll be the necessity after this period to negotiate new reg­u­la­tions. Fol­low­ing the British Par­lia­men­t’s rejec­tion of the with­drawal agree­ment, this option will only be con­sid­ered through rene­go­ti­a­tion and resub­mis­sion to the par­lia­ments in Lon­don and Brus­sels.

If there will be a no-deal Brexit, the Ger­man-British Social Secu­rity Agree­ment of 20 April 1960 between the Fed­eral Repub­lic of Ger­many and the United King­dom might be applic­a­ble once more from 30 March 2019, because the above mentioned reg­u­la­tions will cease to apply to the United King­dom from that date. This agree­ment is not as com­pre­hen­sive as the reg­u­la­tions men­tioned above. For exam­ple, it does not cover unem­ploy­ment and long-term care insur­ance. In the event of a no-deal-Brexit, the Fed­eral Gov­ern­ment has sub­mit­ted a draft ‘Act on tran­si­tional arrange­ments in the areas of employ­ment, edu­ca­tion, health, social affairs and cit­i­zen­ship fol­low­ing the with­drawal of the

United King­dom of Great Britain and North­ern Ire­land from the Euro­pean Union’ (Brex­it­SozSichÜG). The rel­e­vant par­lia­men­tary pro­ce­dure could be com­pleted before 29 March 2019, with the result that, fol­low­ing a no-deal exit from the EU, there will be a tran­si­tional period of legal cer­tainty in terms of insur­ance sta­tus and ben­e­fit enti­tle­ments for all branches of insur­ance. The draft Act states, for exam­ple, that pen­sions which com­menced prior to Brexit will con­tinue to be paid at their cur­rent level and British insur­ance peri­ods will con­tinue to be taken into account when deter­min­ing pen­sion enti­tle­ments. How­ever, the reg­u­la­tions do not apply to per­sons who take up employ­ment in the UK or

Ger­many after Brexit. Extending the deadline for the with­drawal on 29 March 2019 would only be pos­si­ble with the approval of the 27 remain­ing EU Mem­ber States and for com­pelling rea­sons, such as a sec­ond ref­er­en­dum or a new gen­eral elec­tion. At last, the United King­dom could decide to uni­lat­er­ally can­cel its Arti­cle 50 let­ter and stay in the Euro­pean Union with­out the con­sent of the other Mem­ber States (No Brexit), unless a with­drawal agree­ment has already entered into force by then. This was decided by the Euro­pean Court of Jus­tice on 10 Decem­ber 2018 in its judg­ment C-621/ 18. How­ever, this is cur­rently not the case because there is not polit­i­cal back­ing for it.