Article 11 Family and social allowances

A household allowance shall be granted and paid monthly to any contract staff member who:

1. (i)

   is married;

2. (ii)

   is widowed, divorced, legally separated or single and has at least one dependant within the meaning of Annex III to these Regulations;

3. (iii)

   is registered as a stable non-marital partner, provided that:

   • the couple produce a legal document recognised as such from a competent authority of a Member State, acknowledging their status as non-marital partners;

   • neither partner is in a marital relationship or in another non-marital relationship; and

   • the partners are not related in any of the following ways: parent, child, grandparent, grandchild, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, nephew, niece, son-in-law, daughter-in-law.

The household allowance shall be equal to 6 % of net basic salary.

In the case of:

1. (i)

   a married contract staff member who has no dependants but whose spouse is gainfully employed; or

2. (ii)

   a contract staff member who is registered as a stable non-marital partner, as defined in point (iii) of point (a), and who has no dependants, but whose partner is gainfully employed;

the allowance shall be the difference between the net basic salary for grade B3 step 1 plus the allowance to which the contract staff member would be entitled in theory, and the earned income of the spouse or registered partner.

If the latter amount is equal to or greater than the former, no allowance shall be payable.

The household allowance shall not be paid to a contract staff member whose spouse or registered partner is a contract staff member of the Institute or a member of a Coordinated organisation or an organisation associated to the Coordinated Organisations and has a higher basic salary than the contract staff member.

An allowance shall be granted and paid monthly to any contract staff member who mainly and continuously maintains children or other dependants as defined in Annex III.

That allowance shall be a fixed amount for each dependant, set in the scales approved each year by the Board on the basis of the proposal made by the Coordinated Committee on Remunerations.

Where both spouses or registered partners work for the Institute or a Coordinated organisation, the allowance shall be paid to whichever of them is in receipt of household allowance or equivalent.

An education allowance shall be granted to any contract staff member who is entitled to a household allowance and whose dependant child, as defined in Annex III, is at least five years old and in regular full-time primary, secondary or higher education.

Primary education shall not include nursery school or equivalent.

The education allowance shall be equal to twice the amount of the dependant child allowance. The allowance shall be payable for each dependant child in one sum at the beginning of the school year, upon presentation of supporting evidence.

For contract staff members:

1. (i)

   who are entitled to an expatriation allowance and whose place of employment is at least 50 km from either:

   • a European school; or

   • an establishment of higher education in the country of which he or she is a national or where the main language of instruction is his or her native language, unless there is no such establishment in the country of which the contract staff member is a national or where the child attends a higher education establishment in a country other than that of the contract staff member's place of employment; or

2. (ii)

   who can justify the necessity to enrol their dependant child in an educational establishment working in a specific language which the child attends for imperative educational reasons duly supported by evidence;

the education allowance shall be no more than twice the amount of the dependant child allowance to be paid monthly upon presentation of supporting evidence.

Entitlement to the education allowance shall commence on the first day of the month in which the child begins to attend one of the educational establishments referred to in point (i) or point (ii) and shall cease at the end of the month in which the child finishes its education or at the end of the month in which the child reaches the age of twenty-six, whichever is the earliest.

Disabled children's and other disabled dependants' allowance shall be granted and paid monthly to any contract staff member who is primarily and continuously responsible for the care of such disabled child or other dependant. The child or dependant must fulfil the criteria and conditions set out in Annex III.

The details of allocation and payment of the allowance are given in Annex IV.

A rent allowance shall be paid monthly to grade B, C and A1 contract staff members who are tenants or sub-tenants of accommodation and who pay a rent, excluding service charges considered to be the liability of the tenant in the country of residence, that exceeds a specified proportion of their remuneration.

The method of calculating the allowance is set out in Annex V.

Contract staff members in receipt of a rent allowance shall inform the Institute immediately of any change in their circumstances that could affect their eligibility for the allowance or the amount of the allowance.