EESSI is an IT system that helps social security institutions across to EU exchange information more rapidly and securely, as required by the EU rules on social security coordination. At the moment most exchanges are paper-based: these are going to be replaced by electronic exchanges in the coming years, as EU Member States progress with connecting to EESSI.
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How does EESSI work?
All communication between national institutions on cross-border social security files will take place through EESSI: social security institutions will exchange structured electronic documents and follow commonly agreed procedures. These documents will be routed through EESSI to the correct destination in another Member State.
Staff in social security institutions will be able to find the correct destination in another EU country using a repository of national institutions.
When will EESSI be implemented in all Member States?
The central EESSI system was made available by the Commission in July 2017. Following this, Member States have two years to finalise their national implementation of EESSI and to connect their social security institutions to the cross-border electronic exchanges.
What benefits will EESSI bring?
Faster and more efficient message exchange between social security institutions:
- EESSI will speed up exchanges between national authorities. It will allow them to handle individual cases more quickly, and facilitate a faster calculation and payment of benefits.
More accurate data exchange between national authorities:
- Social security institutions across the EU will use standardised electronic documents translated into their own language, improving multilingual communication.
- EESSI will introduce safeguards to ensure that the data exchanged is correct and complete, helping institutions to combat fraud and error.
- EESSI will optimise case handling, introducing standard electronic procedures to be followed by institutions; this will further enhance the correct application of social security coordination rules.
Secure handling of personal data:
- EESSI will introduce the use of a common secure infrastructure for cross-border data exchange between social security institutions.
- It will enable message exchange between national institutions, but the system will not create a database to store such messages and personal data centrally. The content of the messages will only be available to the relevant institutions, and Member States will remain responsible to ensure a high standard of data protection, in line with EU rules.
- EESSI will follow the latest standards in IT security.
Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion – European Commission
