On Wednesday 22 April, negotiators from the European Parliament and the Council of the EU reached an agreement on the reform of social security coordination rules (Regulation 883/2006), after more than 20 negotiating sessions (trilogues) (see EUROPE 13841/15).
The elements approved and known at the time of going to press were as follows, relating to the three most complex points of the reform: the period of affiliation required for a country of activity to be responsible for paying the unemployment benefits of a frontier worker (22 weeks), the maintenance of prior notification for postings of workers of less than three days in the construction sector and a six-month period for exporting unemployment benefits.
The co-legislators still had to reach agreement on the rules governing pluriactivity, but several sources said they were confident. The final result would be already to retain these rules in the recitals rather than in the body of the regulation.
If agreement is reached, the Member States’ ambassadors to the EU (Coreper) could take up the matter on 24 April, and the European Parliament will in turn have to validate the agreement.
Prior to the negotiation meeting on Tuesday 21 April, Gabriele Bischoff (S&D, German), the European Parliament rapporteur, said she was “cautiously optimistic”, in front of a group of journalists. She had explained the European Parliament’s ‘red lines’, particularly as regards the construction sector, which is prone to fraud and requires special treatment on general exemptions from prior notification for postings of less than three days or business trips.
She had also explained having to abandon the European Parliament’s long-standing demand for a double export period of 6 and 10 months for unemployment benefits for cross-border workers, considering it definitively impossible for the Council of the EU to accept this request.
She also went back over the measures already approved by the co-legislators in recent years. This package of measures, which has already been agreed, includes, for example, long-term care needs with, for the first time, a common European definition of long-term care services and a list of services.
The package also guarantees equal treatment for parents living abroad as regards parental leave benefits, and proposes a clear rule on access to health cover for economically inactive mobile European citizens, she said.
But it was the Commission’s introduction in 2016 of the principle of ‘lex loci laboris’ ('law of the place of work') for unemployed cross-border workers that proved one of the most difficult points to negotiate, even though the application of this principle presupposes a certain minimum period of affiliation to a social security system in the country of employment.
The question was which country was responsible for paying unemployment benefit to these cross-border workers. The lex loci laboris is a principle of private international law and European law which determines that the social and labour legislation applicable to a worker is that of the country in which he or she actually carries out his or her professional activity.
At present, and this is one of the reasons for the changes made, this responsibility generally lies with the Member State of residence, she pointed out. The text would therefore now stipulate that this responsibility should be transferred to the country in which the worker carries out his or her activity, after a minimum of 22 weeks’ affiliation, although the Council of the EU has yet to take a formal decision.
This export of benefits would last six months, after which the country of residence would take over. For some countries, this will not make a major difference, she explained, as countries such as Germany already apply this six-month measure on a voluntary basis.
However, she explained, countries such as Luxembourg only apply the current rule, which relates to a three-month export and will therefore cost the Luxembourg social security system more. However, the country is expected to benefit from an exception for five years.
The European Parliament had hoped that this period would be adjusted in line with the length of time workers contribute to national social security systems. “We have found, particularly in the case of cross-border workers, that they pay contributions for a similar length of time to workers residing in Member States. They can contribute for 10 to 20 years. That’s why we proposed a distinction: more than 10 months for those who have been paying into the scheme for more than two years, and separate benefits for others”.
This regulation is expected to apply to 14 million European frontier workers. The last revision dates back to 2010. Agence Europe will continue to follow this story. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)