MEPs adopted by a show of hands, on Thursday 18 January in Strasbourg, a resolution setting out their expectations regarding a potential review of the mandate of the European Labour Authority (ELA).
The MEPs had discussed the matter on the evening of Monday 15 January with the European Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights, Nicolas Schmit, who explained to them that the Commission was in the process of analysing the first five years of the Authority’s existence and, in particular, assessing Parliament’s request to give ELA the means to refer malfunctions detected in national labour markets to the Court of Justice of the EU.
Any revision of the mandate will in any case allow for better implementation of European labour legislation, and this evaluation report should be submitted in August, the Commissioner said.
The resolution adopted on Thursday directly calls on the Commission to “present a proposal for a targeted revision of ELA’s founding regulation, with a view to strengthening its mandate and added value for national authorities to allow it to fully achieve its mission of ensuring fair labour mobility”.
Its mandate should even be “substantially strengthened to ensure its added value to national enforcement authorities, by allowing it to investigate alleged breaches or the non-application of EU law and to initiate and conduct inquiries into and inspections of cross-border cases on its own initiative”.
While ELA’s current remit is limited to supporting the implementation and enforcement of EU legislation, the authority is “often confronted with problems relating to the working conditions of third-country nationals to whom the relevant labour legislation applies”.
ELA’s mandate should therefore also “cover labour mobility for third-country nationals, with a special focus on putting an end to bogus posting and bogus self-employment”.
The European Parliament also wants to explicitly include “sector-specific legislation pertaining to labour law in the context of labour mobility in its mandate, for example, in the transport sector, the construction sector and the agriculture sector, as well as for temporary agency work”.
Joint inspections supported or facilitated by ELA should also be better monitored. ELA should still be able to help recover unpaid wages and social security contributions in cross-border cases.
On Monday, a number of MEPs, including the German EPP member Dennis Radtke, called on the Commission to give “more bite” to ELA, which should be able to “make an active contribution against exploitation (of workers) and ensure that their rights are respected”.
Agnes Jongerius (S&D, Dutch) and Mounir Satouri (Greens/EFA, French) insisted on the rights of workers from third countries. ELA should be able to deal directly with these abuses.
Link to the resolution: https://aeur.eu/f/afn (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)