Home page > Europe > The Court of Justice > ECJ Rules that Pensioners are (...)

ECJ Rules that Pensioners are Entitled to Treatment Abroad


The European Court of Justice ruled on February 25 that pensioners are entitled to reimbursement of medical expenses incurred abroad even if they result from a chronic or pre-existing medical condition.

This was the judgement of the Court in Case C-326/00 (Idryma Koinonikon Asfaliseon (IKA) -v- Vasileios Ioannidis), in which the Court decided that: "A Member State may not subject payment of the medical expenses of a pensioner who has visited another Member State either to authorisation or to the condition that the illness he suffers has manifested itself suddenly".

Last modified on May 12 2003.

Your feedback is valuable to us!

Was this article interesting and relevant for you? Do you have any comments?

 You can post a reply to this article here.

2 Forum messages

Our readers have published these comments:

25 November 2003 19:55, by Bill

> ECJ Rules that Pensioners are Entitled to Treatment Abroad

Does this therefore mean that U.K. residents with pre-existing medical conditions can travel abroad specifically for the purpose of receiving medical care?

Does E112 have to be endorsed by Health authority.

Reply to this message

4 December 2003 11:16, by Tamsin Rose, EPHA Staff (Admin)
> ECJ Rules that Pensioners are Entitled to Treatment Abroad

Thanks for the message. What is interesting about this case is that the European Court stated that for pensioners, any health condition is likely to be pre-existing, so this cannot be used as a basis for refusing to reimburse treatment. I think that you would need a lawyer to interpret the case in more detail. You may find the UK Court Judgement in October 2003 in the case of Mrs Watts of relevance. The judge stated that "if treatment in this country under the NHS is unduly delayed, then an NHS patient is entitled as a matter of European law to travel to another member state, there to be treated on terms requiring the NHS to reimburse the cost of that treatment". The case was widely covered in the UK press (see BBC and the Guardian newspaper websites).

You may also be interested by a recent article about the new proposed EU health card that will replace the E111 and E112. (see link below)

See online : Related article on EPHA website

Reply to this message