In the beginning of this January the Austrian Federal Government proposed a draft of the new law for indexing the family support for the children, who are living in other EU countries, while their parents are employed in Austria. According to it the benefits would be indexed with the living costs of the country, where the children live. Besides Austria also some other EU countries are preparing such new regulations, among others Germany, too.
Twelve member countries (Belgium, Estonia, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Czech Republic and Hungary) now firmly oppose the indexing of the child support as planned by the German and Austrian Federal Government. Also the European Commission is against such indexing.
According to the valid EU directives for the coordination of the system of the social support all employees, migrants or locally staying, are equally supposed to receive the child benefit, »regardless of the living place of the children, who are eligible for such support«. The indexing of the child benefit was accepted at the Austrian Council of Ministers on May second, 2018. For the result from the European Commission announced »detailed examination« of the law with the conformity of the European legislation it will however be necessary to wait a while.
