A new Fair Labour Mobility package, adopted Tuesday by the European Commission, would guarantee clear social rights for everyone, everywhere in the EU, regardless of where they choose to live and work.
The package will enable workers to prove and claim their social security and health insurance rights, and have their qualifications understood everywhere in the EU and formally recognised where the profession is regulated, says the Commission. New rules and tools will better protect mobile workers from abuse and remove slow and complex administrative procedures that hinder companies from recruiting talent or providing services across the EU. National administrations will benefit from more efficient cooperation to enforce workers’ rights and to fight fraud.
The package would profoundly change the single market for the better, said EC executive vice-president Roxana Mînzatu. “For Europeans, it is about empowerment: your choice, your rights, your skills. People should be able to work across Europe with their social rights protected and their qualifications recognised faster. Businesses should be able to recruit the talent they need with less paperwork and fewer delays,” she said.
The package includes a Communication on fair labour mobility and five legislative proposals:
- A Regulation establishing a European Social Security Pass;
- A “Skills Portability Act”, a Regulation on digital and comparable qualifications;
- A Regulation to strengthen the European Labour Authority;
- An amending Directive on professional qualifications; and
- A Directive on qualifications of third-country nationals.
Once fully in place, the package will deliver an estimated €6 billion in benefits by 2040, by faster recognition of professional qualifications, real time verification of social security documents and other savings for business, workers and authorities, as well as by fraud avoidance.
Social security documents will be digitalised in stages, starting with the portable document A1 for posted workers one year after the ESSPASS Regulation enters into force, followed by the European Health Insurance Card and other documents within three years.
Changes to qualifications and skills portability will also be phased in: simpler recognition of non-EU qualifications within two years of adoption, while digital qualifications in the EU Digital Identity Wallet and easier recognition for regulated professions within three years.
Factsheet on European Social Security Pass
Factsheet on strengthened European Labour Authority
Factsheet on skills portability initiative
Communication on Fair Labour Mobility Package
Amending Directive on professional qualifications
Directive on the recognition of qualifications of non-EU nationals
