CYIL vol. 10 (2019)

CYIL 10 ȍ2019Ȏ INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL SECURITY COORDINATION TREATIES … into our country came after the democratic transformation, when these foreigners tried to find better working conditions in our free market economy than the ones that were present in their countries of origin, suffering from the hard economic collapse after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The applicants, citizens of former Soviet republics and now independent states, claimed the existence of the bilateral social security coordination treaty concluded between Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union. 18 This treaty would enable the Czech social security authorities to take into account the contribution periods acquired in various parts of the former Soviet Union and – under the system of coordination – to consider them as relevant for pension and other contributory allowances claims within the Czech system. The Czech courts 19 assessed the outcomes of bilateral diplomatic negotiations that took place after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union with the newly independent successor states. With some of them, specifically with Armenia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan for example, the negotiations turned out to be quite lengthy and unfortunately did not bring any satisfactory concrete results. The Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs could then (in 2004, 15 years after the Soviet Union ceased to exist) declare that the treaties formerly binding Czechoslovakia and the USSR (including the treaty covering social security from 1959) were not binding the Czech Republic and Armenia anymore. These two republics then started to negotiate new bilateral treaties which are quite numerous at this point (about ten treaties covering various areas of cooperation, ranging from industry and economic cooperation, criminal investigation, and medical treatment to double tax avoidance). 20 However, social security coordination is not covered by any bilateral treaty with Armenia, which means that migrating workers cannot rely on automatic coordination of their contribution periods and reconnaissance of already acquired rights. TheCzechcourt highlighted reciprocity andmutual relations as oneof thekey international law principles. The existence of a binding treaty relationship between two states was characterized as a necessary precondition for the possible consideration of contribution periods acquired in a foreign country, together with other conditions laid down in the respective legal norms, e.g. that the period acquired abroad is calculated only if the social insurance contributions were fully paid. The treaty covering social security with the USSR was led by the territorial principle which means that all the claims were to be solved by public authorities of the treaty party where the applicant was residing and the foreign contribution periods could only be considered at the time of application and not earlier, during times when the “old-fashioned” territorial treaty was in force. 4. The case of “the French employees” and their social security coverage in the Czech Republic The third group of cases in which the Czech administrative courts dealt with international social security coordination treaties refers to the time before our EU accession in 2004. The 18 Agreement between the Czechoslovak Republic and the Soviet Union on social security, see No. 116/1960 Coll. 19 See the judgments of the Czech Supreme Administrative Court, File No. 6 Ads 40/2003, 6 Ads 27/2007, 6 Ads 42/2007, 3 Ads 59/2006. 20 See the list of international treaties concluded with Armenia on the website of the Czech MFA. [on-line, 4 June 2019] < https://www.mzv.cz/jnp/cz/encyklopedie_statu/asie/armenie/smlouvy/index.html >

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