On Monday 9 October, EU ministers and representatives of ministers for employment and social affairs agreed on the need to develop digital tools for coordinating social security schemes to prevent cross-border workers from losing their social protection rights and to facilitate exchanges between national authorities.
This debate was devoted to the consolidation and strengthening of social protection systems at a time of digital and ecological transitions in the labour market and new forms of work developed during the Covid-19 crisis, such as teleworking (see EUROPE 13257/22).
In particular, they drew on the recent Commission Communication on reinforcing the digitalisation of social security systems (see EUROPE 13244/2).
Several of the ministers called for negotiations on the revision of the Regulation on the coordination of social security schemes to be finalised, despite the fact that the reform was put on the table in 2016. Others, however, called on the Commission to review its text, particularly with regard to the chapters on prior notification of worker postings and applicable legislation (which determines which authority is responsible for paying social security benefits).
The Netherlands and Luxembourg, as well as Ireland, considered that the impact study used by the Commission to present its reform in 2016, dating from 2012, was no longer appropriate at the time, and asked the Commission to produce a new analysis.
Fabien Raum, the Deputy Permanent Representative of Luxembourg, a country with a large number of cross-border workers, said that “digitalisation can obviously contribute to the free movement of workers and the fight against abuse and fraud, but it is only a tool; it cannot be the answer to all the problems, and certainly will not compensate for poorly designed standards” in the reform. “Useless bureaucracy remains useless even when it is digitalised”, he quipped.
Luxembourg, which was one of the countries in the blocking minority on Regulation 883/2004, would like to move towards “a temporary horizontal derogation” from notifications for all short-term postings.
Questioned on this subject at the end of the day of work, the Commissioner reiterated that digitalisation “can help find a solution” and that this was also a request from Parliament.
For his part, the Spanish Minister for Security and Social Inclusion, José Luis Escriva, said he hoped an agreement could be reached under his presidency, and acknowledged that “it is a complex issue that has occupied many presidencies. But there is no doubt that digitalisation will help to find a solution”.
In general, some of the Member States highlighted the financial impact that Covid-19, and then inflation, have had on national finances and the funding of social protection, which represents a real challenge with the problems of future costs for long-term care. They also stressed the importance of reforming these social security systems to prepare them for these changes.
Social protection for the self-employed
With a number of Member States highlighting increased insecurity for self-employed people during the debate, in particular their reduced access to social security cover, the Council of the EU also approved conclusions on social protection for the self-employed. In more than half of the Member States, self-employed workers were not covered by all branches of social protection in 2022. For example, over 15 million self-employed workers in the EU have no access to unemployment benefit.
The Council therefore calls on the Member States to close the remaining gaps in their national schemes in order to improve access to social protection for self-employed workers, with particular emphasis on unemployment and sickness benefits.
Link to the conclusions: https://aeur.eu/f/8yu (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)