OVERVIEW OF RECENT CASES BEFORE THE COURT OF JUSTICE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION (JULY-DECEMBER 2015)

In the second half of 2015 the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) delivered a comparatively small number of rulings relevant to the field of social security. Among these, however, were some particularly interesting ones. The one that stands out is the judgment in Alimanovic, in which the CJEU was again called upon to address the politically sensitive issue of the access of economically inactive EU citizens to social assistance benefits. In addition, the CJEU delivered judgments concerning portability of benefits (the Commission v Slovakia cases), the legal value of E 101 certificates for Rhine Boatmen and the so-called acte claire doctrine (X and van Dijk), family benefits (Trapkowski) and the 'coordination' between the EU social security system and national social security systems (Wojciechowski).