The European Parliament and the EU Council left yesterday without reaching agreement on the regulation on the coordination of social security systems, in the early evening of Thursday 29 October, at the end of yet another interinstitutional meeting.
Discussions focused on the issue of exporting unemployment insurance for frontier and cross-border workers. Here, the co-legislators are moving towards an export system with a lower limit, which will necessarily have to be somewhere between payments of six months for the EU Council and 15 months for Parliament, with the possibility of an increase depending on the length of time the worker has contributed.
The export period could increase after 24 months, but this has yet to be established by the co-legislators. The mechanism is therefore more or less agreed; the precise details remain to be determined. The question of distinguishing treatment between frontier and cross-border commuters is reported to still be open. The EU Council is in favour of a single solution, while Parliament is in favour of a separation, with a view to maximising the chances of obtaining a longer export period for frontier workers.
Very little progress would have been made on the other two stumbling blocks. On the question of prior notification of the posting of workers, the EU Council would like to make progress on a proposal combining a temporary exemption with an activity-based exemption (for business trips). However, for Parliament, which was the source of this proposal, as it was neither in the initial proposal of the European Commission nor in the general approach of the EU Council, this solution would not be satisfactory.
The question of working time in the definition of pluriactivity has been only touched upon. Here, the EU Council is firm: it is against it (see EUROPE 12587/19). Introducing the concept of working time would be impracticable for the authorities responsible for inspections and controls, according to the Member States. For Parliament, on the contrary, any company should be aware of the collective working time carried out afterwards, and this would not really pose a problem. The Parliament has asked the EU Council to present an alternative solution to protect workers.
The next interinstitutional meeting is reportedly scheduled for 18 November. Some hope that this meeting will be the last in a very long series (see EUROPE 12171/13) to conclude the negotiations which started in December 2016 (see EUROPE 11688/23). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)