Legal representatives, on behalf of the Association of Italian Officials of the European Patent Office, bearing 26 signatures, on the transfer of pension contributions paid in Italy to Eurocontrol and the European Patent Office  

The petitioners are presenting a group petition on the protection of the pension rights of their clients, 26 international civil servants currently working for Eurocontrol and the European Patent Office. They are all Italian citizens who worked in Italy and in the EU before joining these international organisations. As there is no agreement between Italy and Eurocontrol or the European Patent Office which provides for the transfer of pension entitlements, or the aggregation of contributions, with a view to acquiring an entitlement to a single pension, the Italian citizens in question may lose the contributions they paid in Italy, because Italian law allegedly makes no provision for their reimbursement. The petitioners invoke: a series of articles of the Treaties (9, 20, 45, 145, 146, 147 and 151 TFEU) and of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (15 and 34), the preambles to Directive 2004/58/EC on the free movement of workers, and Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 723/2004 amending the Staff Regulations of EU officials, as well as other documents drawn up by the Commission (COM(2012) 153 final on the external dimension of EU social security coordination) and Parliament (resolution of 25 October 2011 on promoting the mobility of workers within the EU, in particular paragraphs 27 and 33) and, last but not least, the CJEU judgment of 4 July 2013 in Case C-233/12, Gardella v. INPS.The petitioners are calling on Parliament to halt this discrimination as regards access to pension entitlements, so that contributions paid in the country of origin can be combined with those paid to the international organisations referred to above. They also ask that the issue be made the subject of a European Parliament resolution.