The European Commission wants to make life easier for European citizens and companies wishing to exercise their right to mobility within the EU and to post workers with fewer administrative constraints.
In a communication published on 6 September, it proposed to develop the digitisation of certain social security procedures and electronic exchange between the competent institutions by asking the Member States to speed up Electronic Exchange of Social Security Information (EESSI) so that it be fully operational throughout Europe by the end of 2024.
With 16 million EU nationals living or working in a Member State other than the one in which they were born, “access to social benefits is not always straightforward”, summarised Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis, citing technical problems of interoperability between administrations, difficulties in exchanging data and the additional costs generated by these exchanges of paper documents.
To date, only 13 countries are able to carry out electronic exchanges in all social security sectors and with all institutions (Bulgaria, France, Cyprus, Denmark, Greece, Latvia, Hungary, Malta, Sweden, Portugal, as well as Norway, Iceland and the United Kingdom), notes the Commission in its communication.
The communication also calls on Member States to put in place more procedures for coordinating social security systems that can be pursued entirely online as part of the European digital portal, which, by the end of 2023, will enable 21 cross-border administrative procedures to be fully digitised, including 3 concerning social security (the request for determination of the social security legislation to which the holder is subject, i.e. the A1 portable document; the request for a European health insurance card; requests for calculation of pensions).
The EU27 are again invited to participate fully in the pilot activities of the European Social Security Passport (ESSPASS) and to extend the scope of European digital identity portfolios, which will also enable EU citizens to hold digital versions of documents relating to their rights, such as the European Health Insurance Card (EHIC).
On ESSPASS, which will eventually enable all requests for and receipts of certificates of social security entitlement between citizens and social security institutions to be digitised, the Commission has indicated that it may legislate depending on the outcome of this pilot project.
Begun in 2021, this project has already involved 13 member countries and will continue until 2025. For the time being, it is experimenting with the full digitisation of the A1 form, required for the posting of workers, which “very often gives rise to complaints from companies” and entails risks of fraud, explained the European Commissioner for Social Affairs, Nicolas Schmit, as well as the digitisation of the health insurance card.
Eventually, all procedures, such as those relating to work-related accidents, occupational illnesses or unemployment benefits, will have to become perfectly portable and interoperable between national administrations..
European trade unions disappointed
“Europe is no closer to resolving the exploitation of cross-border workers following the communication on digitalisation in social security”, was the reaction the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) in a press release.
“The lack of interconnected social security systems within the European Union creates a loophole which allows companies to cut costs by avoiding the payment of social security contributions for their workers”. In its 2021 action plan on the social pillar, “the Commission undertook to study, by 2023, the launch of a digital solution to facilitate interaction between mobile citizens and national authorities. Today, the Commission has pushed back the end date of the pilot project to 2025 and has still not announced whether this will lead to legislation”.
Link to the communication: https://aeur.eu/f/8gd (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)