The European Commission is expected to present its long-awaited package on fair labour mobility in Strasbourg on Tuesday 15 September, which should both give the European Labour Authority (ELA) more powers to better combat fraud, facilitate worker mobility through a digitalised ‘European social security pass’ system, and also speed up and improve the recognition of professional qualifications and skills, notably in regulated professions, under a new legislative act on the portability of skills.
While the EU co-legislators completed, in spring 2026, the revision of Regulation 883/2004 on the rules coordinating social security systems, the Commission will give them breathing space and will present a further modernisation of this instrument only in spring 2027.
In the meantime, the ‘Fair Mobility’ package will focus on issues of fraud affecting labour rights, notably those linked to posted workers from third countries, and on faster access for businesses and citizens to their ‘social’ data when they provide services in another Member State. It will also seek to improve the recruitment of talent from third countries by also allowing faster recognition of the qualifications and skills of foreign workers, without altering Member States’ competence to determine the numbers of non-EU workers.
In total, three draft regulations — on ESPASS, on the ELA and on the portability of skills and qualifications — and two directives on the automatic recognition of qualifications will form part of the legislative package that Agence Europe has consulted.
ELA. Although the ELA has still not been authorised by the EU27 to carry out inspections on its own into suspected fraud involving the rules on worker mobility, it will now have direct access to national data and will, on the basis of its analyses, be better able to help governments tackle certain abuses. The ELA’s mediation role will also be strengthened in order to resolve cross-border disputes. While strengthening cooperation between Member States on joint and concerted inspections, particularly in high-risk sectors (construction, transport, agriculture, etc.), it will be able to require Member States to justify any refusal to take part in joint inspections.
The ELA will also be able to help Member States better verify the grounds for posting workers from third countries.
It will also have to increase the number of individuals and businesses benefiting from support for cross-border mobility and improve matching results between labour supply and demand by strengthening the effectiveness of the governance and operation of the EURES network and portal. The aim is to increase the number and proportion of placements facilitated by EURES, improve the coverage of CVs and job vacancies, and increase user satisfaction with the EURES portal and the governance of the EURES network. Strengthening the ELA will require around €15 million extra per year, mainly for improving information services, increasing inspection capacity and data processing.
ESPASS (European Social Security Pass). The aim will be to harmonise the data required to apply for the portable document A1. The next step for the Commission will be to work with Member States to enable interoperability between national portals for applying for the portable document A1 and public interfaces connected to the Internal Market Information System (IMI), the text indicates.
Competent institutions should be required to issue social security documents to the person concerned and, where applicable, to the employer, within binding time limits. “Given the importance of rapid access to healthcare during a temporary stay abroad, the maximum deadline for the issuance of the European Health Insurance Card should not exceed 24 hours from the submission of a complete request. This should be achievable, as the only information to check is the actual insurance of the person”, the text explains.
‘Portability’ Regulation. The aim will be to promote verifiable and interoperable digital credentials in order to simplify cross-border recognition and to establish common standards for the issuing, verification and interoperability of digital qualification credentials.
The text “sets out the trust framework for digital qualifications attestations, which should be retrievable electronically by holders of qualifications. They are to be issued within European Digital Identity Wallets as qualified electronic attestations of attributes or as electronic attestations of attributes issued by or on behalf of a public sector body responsible for an authentic source. The article also sets out that Member States shall communicate lists of the awarding bodies, accreditations and qualifications included in their National Qualifications Frameworks to the Commission”.
Member States will have to issue digital qualification credentials free of charge to holders. The text also defines the data requirements applicable to these credentials, states that they must be recognised as proving the qualification issued to the holder, and that they must be valid throughout the Union.
Physiotherapists. Another directive on the subject, for EU citizens, will make it easier to secure automatic recognition for new regulated professions, with the Commission starting with physiotherapists, a profession facing shortages in some Member States.
In addition to the common training framework for physiotherapists, the Commission has drawn up an indicative list of priority professions for which common training frameworks could be introduced in future. It covers professions essential to competitiveness and innovation potential: civil engineers and biomedical laboratory technicians, electricians and landscape architects. It also includes several professions in the care sector (for example nurses and nursing assistants, occupational therapists and radiographers), as well as professions related to education (for example early childhood educators and childcare professionals).
Fears. “It seems we also have to remind the Commission that this, as the title says, should be about fair labour mobility and not just mobility of labour. Sadly, I fear way too much focus on mobile labour and easing things for big companies, and much less about ensuring fairness and decent working conditions”, reacted Danish MEP Per Clausen (The Left).
“This smells of missed opportunities, if we end up leaving out fixing obvious issues – such as the abuse of endless sub-contracting chains – related to labour mobility in the EU”. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)