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The European Pillar of Social Rights sets out a number of key principles and rights to support fair and well-functioning labour markets and welfare systems. It is designed as a compass for a renewed process of convergence towards better working and living conditions across the Union, ensuring the citizens equal opportunities and access to the labour market, fair working conditions and social protection and inclusion. Ensuring fair labour mobility in Europe is central to this objective.

In March 2018 Commission adopted a proposal for a Regulation on establishing European Labour Authority and for access to social protection with the idea to implement the European Pillar of Social Rights and increase social fairness.

Regulation draft of 70 pages and 51 articles was adopted in Strasbourg, 13.3.2018 COM (2018) 131, final 2018/0064 (COD) is at: http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1414&langId=en

Commission’s proposal for a European Labour Authority ensures access to social protection for all workers and self-employed. New initiatives are accompanied by a Communication on the monitoring of the implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights, which will be closely linked to the policy coordination through the European Semester. 

Commissioner for employment, social affairs, skills and labour mobility, Marianne Thyssen, underlined that the new Authority was both essential for a well-functioning European labour market and for providing citizens and businesses with the right information on labour rules. Besides, the Authority will strengthen cooperation among the EU states in social protection so that people will have access to adequate benefits regardless of working conditions.

European Labour Authority

Over the last decade, the number of mobile citizens, people living and/or working in another Member State, has almost doubled to reach 17 million in 2017. The European Labour Authority will help individuals, businesses and national administrations to get the most out of the opportunities offered by free movement and to ensure fair labour mobility. The objectives of the Authority are three-fold:

= it will provide information to citizens and business on opportunities for jobs, apprenticeships, mobility schemes, recruitments and training, as well as guidance on rights and obligations to live, work and/or operate in another EU state.

= it will support cooperation between national authorities in cross-border situations, by helping them ensure that the EU rules that protect and regulate mobility are easily and effectively followed; and 

= it will be able to provide mediation and facilitate solutions in case of cross-border disputes, such as in the event of company restructuring involving several EU states.

Recommendation on access to social protection 

The Commission also presented a proposal for a Council Recommendation on access to social protection for workers and the self-employed. In line with the European Pillar of Social Rights, this proposal sets “directions” for the EU states in supporting access to social protection for all workers and self-employed, in particular for those who, due to their employment status, are not sufficiently covered by social security schemes. The Recommendation foresees for example:

= to close formal coverage gaps by ensuring that workers and the self-employed in comparable conditions can adhere to corresponding social security systems;

= to offer them adequate effective coverage, so that they can build up and claim adequate entitlements;

= to facilitate the transfer of social security entitlements from one job to the next; 

= to provide workers and the self-employed with transparent information about their social security entitlements and obligations.

On social protection:  http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1312&langId=en

Legislative efforts

The Commission has adopted a number of initiatives and proposals to promote fair labour mobility, in particular, the revisions of the Posting of Workers Directive12 and of the Regulations on the Coordination of Social Security Systems as well as the package "Europe on the Move", including some special directives on the posting of workers in international road transport operations and the revision of social and market rules in road transport. These recent initiatives are in line with the previous legislative proposals on enforcement of posting of workers, free movement of workers, the Regulation on EURES (European network of employment services) and the creation of a European Platform to tackle undeclared work.

See also: = Standard Eurobarometer 88 - Public opinion in the European Union, December 2017.  = numerous Commission’s communications, e.g. COM (2016) 128 final, COM (2016) 815 final, COM (2017) 278 final, COM (2017) 277 final and COM (2017) 281. = 2016 Annual Report on Intra-EU Labour Mobility, and its second edition of May 2017. = European Parliament resolution of 14 September 2016 on social dumping in the European Union (2015/2255(INI)).

Note: In the Commission’s “State of the Union address-2017”, the establishment of a 'European Labour Authority' was proposed to ensure that EU rules on labour mobility are enforced in a fair, simple, and effective way. This proposal aimed at setting up such an Authority in the form of a decentralised EU agency to address the following main challenges: · Inadequate support and guidance for individuals and businesses in cross-border situations, including incomplete or sparse information available to the public concerning their rights and obligations; · Insufficient access to and sharing of information between national authorities responsible for different domains of labour mobility and social security coordination; · Insufficient capacity of national authorities to organise cooperation with authorities across borders; · Weak or absent mechanisms for joint cross-border enforcement activities; · The lack of a dedicated cross-border mediation mechanism among EU states across all domains of labour mobility and social security coordination; · Insufficient cooperation set-up at EU level in this area.

See the 2017 State of the Union in: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/state-union-2017_en

Perspectives

In mid-March 2018, the Commission presented the package of initiatives to the member states national employment and social affairs ministers at the Council meeting in Brussels. The, at the Council meetings at the end of March 2018, the EU heads of states again addressed the need for urgent implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights.

Therefore, the EU Labour Authority, which is expected to be formally established in 2019 and reached its full operational capacity by 2023, will address all these issues.

Source: http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?langId=en&catId=89&newsId=9061&furtherNews=yes