Brussels, 09/12/2002 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has approved a communication on the free movement of workers, the advantages and potentialities, with a view to bringing the Union closer to its citizens by informing them of their rights in this respect and allowing them to better exercise these rights, as many barriers still prevent them from doing so. The Commission underlines the obstacles preventing workers and employers from fully exploiting the advantages and potentialities of geographical mobility and recalls that its communication completes the earlier reports and texts on free movement (its communication of 1990 on crossborder workers, the High Level Group on the free movement of persons, called the Veil Report, its communication on the new labour markets, etc.).
This latest communication places emphasis on four separate but closely connected problems, which pose specific difficulties for citizens or which have been handled by the Court of Justice: 1) the obstacles which workers and their family members come up against: access to employment, linguistic requirements, equal treatment and social advantages, problems of an administrative and legal kind in relation to the right of residence; 2) questions regarding social security in relation to Regulation 1408/71, and notably the conditions of residence fixed to be able to benefit from health care payments in another Member State; 3) specific problems of crossborder workers concerning health care, social security and taxation; and 4) access to the public sector and the recognition of earlier professional experience acquired in another Member State.