EU court counts foreign arduous work

The Court of Justice of the European Union said on May 21 that member states must take into account the specific advantages linked to arduous work performed in another EU country when calculating retirement pensions. The ruling came in Case C-717/24, known as *Sociálna poisťovňa (Underground miner’s retirement pension)*, and concerned a Slovak miner whose years underground in what is now the Czech Republic were excluded from his pension claim in Slovakia. The judgment was not about Spain directly. But it goes to a question that matters in Spain’s pension system as well: whether hazardous or especially arduous work done abroad can be counted when a worker seeks retirement advantages tied to that kind of job. Spain’s Social Security system provides for earlier retirement in occupations considered exceptionally arduous, dangerous, toxic or unhealthy, subject to specific conditions. (curia.europa.eu) ### Which court case triggered this? Between July 1, 1976 and Aug. 31, 1995, the worker at the center of the case was employed as an underground miner in Karviná, in the territory of the present-day Czech Republic, before later holding jobs in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the court said. Under former Czechoslovak rules, miners were in a category that allowed retirement from age 55 if they had worked 25 years in total, including 15 years underground in a deep mine. (curia.europa.eu) In 2013, when the worker was 55, he applied for a pension in Slovakia. Slovak authorities rejected the application, saying he had not completed the required 15 years underground because they refused to count part of the work he had carried out after Jan. 1, 1993 in the Czech Republic, where the old classification system had been abolished earlier than in Slovakia. ### What exactly did the EU court decide? (curia.europa.eu) The Luxembourg-based court said the EU rule on coordinating social security systems is meant to ensure that workers do not lose pension advantages linked to certain activities simply because they exercised free movement and performed that work in another member state. The judges said that principle applies whenever the state responsible for granting the pension has specific retirement rules for certain occupations or activities. (curia.europa.eu) La Voz de Galicia, reporting on the judgment’s possible effect in Spain, said the ruling means periods worked in other EU countries must count not only toward the amount of the pension but also toward access to rights and advantages established by law, including earlier retirement. ### Why does this matter for Spain? (curia.europa.eu) Spain’s Social Security rules allow the ordinary retirement age to be lowered for occupational groups whose work is exceptionally arduous, dangerous, toxic or unhealthy and involves high rates of illness or mortality. The official guidance says the reduction coefficients apply only if workers prove the required minimum period in that profession or activity and meet the other general conditions. (lavozdegalicia.es) That means the practical issue for Spain-based workers with cross-border careers is not whether every foreign job counts automatically. The key question is whether the work performed in another EU member state corresponds to the kind of activity that Spanish law recognizes for retirement advantages tied to arduous work. The EU court’s ruling points toward counting those periods rather than ignoring them solely because they were completed abroad. That is an inference from the judgment and Spain’s existing rules. (seg-social.es) ### Does the ruling create a new Spanish retirement scheme? Spain did not create a new pension category on May 21. The country already has a framework for reducing retirement age in especially arduous or hazardous occupations, and the government updated the procedure for recognizing such reduction coefficients in 2025. The immediate next step in the underlying case is in Slovakia, where the Supreme Administrative Court referred the questions to the EU court and must now resolve the dispute in line with the Luxembourg ruling. (curia.europa.eu) For workers in Spain, the documents that matter next are likely to be foreign employment records, contribution histories and any future guidance from Spanish pension authorities or courts applying the judgment to specific claims. (boe.es)