On Monday 30 March, the European Commission published guidelines to ensure the free movement of workers (as well as posted workers) across borders, which it considers “critical” to combating the COVID-19 outbreak, while at the same time allowing the supply of essential goods to people within the EU.
The European Commission is thus responding directly to the requests made by the Member States on Thursday 26 March to prevent European citizens and, in particular, workers and seasonal workers from being blocked at the internal borders of the Union (point 3 of the statement of 26 March - see EUROPE 12455/1).
Thus, the institution has targeted some 40 occupations, ranging from health services personnel, scientists in the health and pharmaceutical industries, information and communications technology professionals, engineers in the energy sector, firefighters and police officers, to workers and drivers in the transportation sector (trucks, trains, buses, and airline pilots, in particular) and fishermen.
The European Commission also insists that Member States should continue to allow the crossing of frontier workers “if work in the sector concerned is still allowed in the host Member State”. In general, the institution suggests that Member States should treat frontier workers and national workers in the same way.
Concerning seasonal workers, in particular in the agricultural sector, Member States are invited by the Commission to speed up the exchange of information via the Technical Committee on Freedom of Movement for Workers to establish specific procedures to address labour shortages resulting from the crisis.
To this end, the institution invites the Member States to make use of the exception provided for in Article 16 of Regulation 883/2004 on the coordination of social security systems with a view to maintaining unchanged social security coverage for the workers concerned.
To consult the European Commission's guidelines: https://bit.ly/340B8yH (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)