More than 10 million Europeans of working age – 3.9% of the EU’s working-age population – live in another EU Member State, and many more are interested in working abroad. To support worker mobility, the European Commission adopted the Fair Labour Mobility Package on 15 September. This set of measures has three main pillars: easier recognition of skills and qualifications; digitalisation of social security documents; and strengthening of the European Labour Authority (ELA).
Firstly, the package seeks to make qualifications and skills more portable across Europe. The proposed Skills Portability Initiative would make qualifications easier to issue, compare, verify and recognise across the EU, including through a standardised digital format. The Commission also proposes common standards for the recognition of qualifications obtained outside the EU.
Secondly, the proposed European Social Security Pass (ESSPASS) would allow workers to request, store and present important social-security documents – including the European Health Insurance Card and the A1 certificate for posted workers – in a digital wallet. National authorities would then be able to verify these documents faster, reducing administrative burdens when workers move between countries.
Thirdly, the package provides the European Labour Authority (ELA) with stronger tools in the areas of inspection, cooperation and dispute resolution to support Member States in enforcing EU rules. ELA’s mandate would also be expanded to include the fight against illegal employment and abuses against third-country nationals working in the EU.
While this latter pillar of the package has been generally welcomed by unions across the EU, commentators point out a series of risks in the first two parts of the package, including the risk that easier qualification recognition could contribute to lowering standards in regulated professions, or that the digitalisation of social security documents could lead to digital barriers or data-security issues.
More generally, facilitating intra-EU labour mobility should go hand in hand with efforts to improve job quality, particularly in sectors and regions struggling to recruit and retain workers. As the EU faces severe workforce shortages in some professions, worker mobility should not be a substitute for improving employment conditions in sectors and regions struggling to recruit and retain workers. This is particularly relevant given that intra-EU mobility still largely runs from poorer to wealthier Member States, potentially depriving countries and regions of workers and skills that are already in short supply.
The European Parliament and the Council will now discuss the measures proposed, which would then be introduced gradually over several years. It will therefore take time to assess whether the Fair Labour Mobility Package fulfils its promise of making cross-border work easier. Its success will ultimately depend not only on its ability to facilitate cross-border mobility and reduce administrative burdens, but also on whether it strengthens the protection of workers’ rights across borders.
You can find more information on the Commission homepage here: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_26_1851