FCI – v – Instituto Nacional de la Seguridad Social (INSS), reference lodged by the Tribunal Superior de Justicia de Cataluña (Spain) on 8 June 2020

1. Must Article 3(2) of Directive 79/7 of [19] December 1978 on the progressive implementation of the principle of equal treatment for men and women in matters of social security, which does not apply to survivors’ benefits or family benefits, be declared invalid or treated as such on the ground that it is contrary to a fundamental principle of European Union law, namely equality between men and women, which is declared a founding principle of the European Union in Articles 2 and 3 of the Treaty on European Union and in Article 19 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, and a fundamental right in Article 21(1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and also in the long-established and settled case-law of the Court of Justice?

2. Must Article 6 of the Treaty on European Union and Article 17(1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union be interpreted, in the light of Article 1 of Additional Protocol No 1 to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, signed in Rome on 4 November 1950, as precluding a national measure such as that under consideration in the main proceedings (which was prompted by Constitutional Court judgment No 40/2014 of 11 March 2014, the ensuing national case-law and the legislative amendments that implemented the judgment) which – in practice, given the general lack of awareness of the need for formalisation and the absence of any transition period for complying with the requirement – initially prevented members of de facto partnerships governed by the Código Civil Catalán (Catalan Civil Code) from obtaining a survivor’s pension, and has subsequently made it extremely difficult for them to access this benefit?

3. Must the fundamental principle of European Union law of equality between men and women, which is included as a founding value in Articles 2 and 3 of the Treaty on European Union, and the prohibition of discrimination on ground of sex, which is recognised as a fundamental right in Article 21 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union in conjunction with Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights, be interpreted as precluding a national measure such as that under consideration in the main proceedings (which was prompted by Constitutional Court judgment No 40/2014 of 11 March 2014, the ensuing national case-law and the legislative amendments that implemented the judgment) which – in practice, given the general lack of awareness of the need for formalisation and the absence of any transition period for complying with the requirement – initially prevented members of de facto partnerships governed by the Catalan Civil Code from obtaining a survivor’s pension, and has subsequently made it extremely difficult for them to access this benefit, to the disadvantage of a far greater percentage of women than men?

4. Must the prohibition on grounds of ‘birth’ or, alternatively of ‘membership of a national minority’ as reasons or ‘grounds’ for discrimination prohibited by Article 21(1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union in conjunction with Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights, be interpreted as precluding a national measure such as that under consideration in the main proceedings (which was prompted by Constitutional Court judgment No 40/2014 of 11 March 2014, the ensuing national case-law and the legislative amendments that implemented the judgment) which – in practice, given the general lack of awareness of the need for formalisation and the absence of any transition period for complying with the requirement – initially prevented members of de facto partnerships governed by the Catalan Civil Code from obtaining a survivor’s pension, and has subsequently made it extremely difficult for them to access this benefit?