Benefits included in the Agreement

General Information

This agreement shall apply:

A) For Spain:

To the legislation relating to the contributory benefits of the Spanish Social Security System, with the exception of the special schemes for civil servants, civilians and military personnel, with regard to:

a) Retirement.

b) Permanent Disability and Survival derived from common or professional contingencies.

B) For the Republic of Moldova:

To the State social insurance legislation regulating:

(a) old age pension;

(b) disability pension determined on the basis of common diseases;

(c) survivor's pension;

(d) pension and disability benefits for occupational injuries or diseases.

Regarding these benefits, remember that:

To get the contributory benefits included in the Agreement, insurance periods completed in Spain and Moldova can be added together.
Contributory cash benefits are payable regardless of whether the person concerned resides in Spain or Moldova.
Each country will pay its own benefits directly to the beneficiary.
Those who meet the requirements of the legislations of both countries for entitlement to a contributory pension may receive it from either country.

Permanent Disability, Retirement and Survival

Each country will examine the pension application separately, as follows:

They will check whether the interested party is entitled to the benefit, taking into account only their own insurance periods, without adding those of the other country.

Then the benefit will be calculated by adding together their own insurance periods and those accredited in the other country (theoretical pension). In this case, the benefit will not be for the whole amount but a proportion of the insurance periods in the country granting it and the sum of the periods for Spain and Moldova (prorated pension).

The benefits calculated as indicated in previous sections will be compared, and each country will recognise and pay the benefit which most favours the interested party.

There is an exception for cases where the total duration of the insurance periods accredited in one of the two countries is less than one year, and they alone do not entitle the worker to a pension in that country. They may be accepted as its own by the other country if necessary, but without applying the "prorrata temporis" clause.

If the accredited insurance periods in both of the countries come to less than one year, they will be added together by the country in which the interested party meets the requirements for being granted a pension. In the event that the worker is entitled to a benefit in both countries, this will only be granted by the country in which the worker has their most recent accredited insurance periods. In none of these cases will the “prorrata temporis” clause be applicable.

The recognition and calculation of the pension will take into account:

If the legislation of one of the countries requires a certain duration of insurance periods in order to grant a full benefit, the amount of which is based on the insurance periods, when adding them up, the Authorised Institution in that country will take into account only the contribution periods in the other country needed to qualify for the entitlement to that pension.
The Institution calculating the pension will consider the worker to be subject to its legislation if they are insured in the other country, or receive a benefit in that country based on its own insurance periods. For the recognition of survivor's pensions, it will be considered whether the deceased was insured in or received a pension from the other country.
If some periods of insurance must have been accrued before the causal event of a benefit in order for said benefit to be granted, this requirement will also be considered to have been met if the interested party accredits these insurance periods in the period immediately prior to the recognition of the benefit by the other country.
If the legislation of one of the signatory countries contains clauses which reduce, suspend or eliminate the pension in the case of pensioners who work, these clauses will be applicable even if the work is performed in the other country.
If completed insurance periods in Moldova had to be added to reach entitlement to a Spanish pension, the calculation of the pension will be based on the real contribution basis accredited by the insured party in Spain in the years immediately before payment of the final contribution to the Spanish Social Security system. The amount obtained will be increased annually according to the established revaluations until the date of the causal event for benefits of the same kind.

Work-related injury and occupational disease

The benefit will be determined by the country whose legislation the worker is subject to on the date when the accident occurred or the disease was contracted.