[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 31, Number 41 (Monday, October 16, 1995)]
[Pages 1804-1805]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Message to the Congress Transmitting the Germany-United States Social 
Security Agreement

October 10, 1995

To the Congress of the United States:

    Pursuant to section 233(e)(1) of the Social Security Act (the 
``Act''), as amended by the Social Security Amendments of 1977 (Public 
Law 95-216; 42 U.S.C. 433(e)(1)), I transmit herewith the Second 
Supplementary Agreement Amending the Agreement Between the United States 
of America and the Federal Republic of Germany on Social Security (the

[[Page 1805]]

Second Supplementary Agreement), which consists of two separate 
instruments: a principal agreement and an administrative arrangement. 
The Second Supplementary Agreement, signed at Bonn on March 6, 1995, is 
intended to modify certain provisions of the original United States-
Germany Social Security Agreement, signed January 7, 1976, which was 
amended once before by the Supplementary Agreement of October 2, 1986.
    The United States-Germany Social Security Agreement is similar in 
objective to the social security agreements with Austria, Belgium, 
Canada, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the 
Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the 
United Kingdom. Such bilateral agreements provide for limited 
coordination between the United States and foreign social security 
systems to eliminate dual social security coverage and taxation, and to 
help prevent the loss of benefit protection that can occur when workers 
divide their careers between two countries.
    The present Second Supplementary Agreement, which would further 
amend the 1976 Agreement to update and clarify several of its 
provisions, is necessitated by changes that have occurred in U.S. and 
German law in recent years. Among other things, it would extend to U.S. 
residents the advantages of recent German Social Security legislation 
that allows certain ethnic German Jews from Eastern Europe to receive 
German benefits based on their Social Security coverage in their former 
homelands.
    The United States-Germany Social Security Agreement, as amended, 
would continue to contain all provisions mandated by section 233 and 
other provisions that I deem appropriate to carry out the provisions of 
section 233, pursuant to section 233(c)(4) of the Act.
    I also transmit for the information of the Congress a report 
prepared by the Social Security Administration explaining the key points 
of the Second Supplementary Agreement, along with a paragraph-by-
paragraph explanation of the effect of the amendments on the principal 
agreement and the related administrative arrangement. Annexed to this 
report is the report required by section 233(e)(1) of the Act on the 
effect of the agreement on income and expenditures of the U.S. Social 
Security program and the number of individuals affected by the 
agreement. The Department of State and the Social Security 
Administration have recommended the Second Supplementary Agreement and 
related documents to me.
    I commend the United States-Germany Second Supplementary Social 
Security Agreement and related documents.
                                            William J. Clinton
The White House,
October 10, 1995.