The laws to which the Agreement applies do not include treaties and other international agreement—for example, either country’s bilateral social security agreements with third countries or multilateral agreements.  The purpose of this provision is to ensure that in cases where a person has periods of coverage in the United States and Austria and periods of coverage in a third country with which the United States or Austria has a social security agreement, periods from all three countries may not be combined to meet U.S. or Austrian benefit eligibility requirements.

The Agreement, however, takes into account any provision of Austrian treaties “relating to the apportionment of insurance burdens.”  These provisions are contained in certain bilateral treaties that were in force between Austria and the Federal Republic of Germany and [the former] Yugoslavia at the time the original Agreement entered into force, regarding the sharing of pension liabilities resulting from periods of coverage prior to, during and just after World War II.  Under the Austrian-Yugoslav convention, for example, a person who lived in Austria as an Austrian citizen on January 1, 1956, and who completed periods of coverage in Yugoslavia prior to that date, had those periods counted under Austrian rather than Yugoslav laws.  A person who lived in Yugoslavia as a Yugoslav citizen on January 1, 1956, and who had periods of coverage in Austria prior to that date, had those periods counted under Yugoslav rather than Austrian law.  Under Article 2(3) of the Agreement, if periods completed in Yugoslavia were taken into account under Austrian laws in accordance with the Austrian-Yugoslav convention, those periods were also considered Austrian periods of coverage in applying the U.S.-Austrian Agreement.  A similar provision is contained in the U.S.-German social security agreement, since the Federal Republic of Germany also has entered into treaties that include provisions on the apportionment of insurance burdens.