Social Agenda 51 – Fair mobility and social fairness

The April issue of the Social Agenda magazine focuses on the notion of fairness: fair cross-border mobility, with the creation of a European Labour Authority; and social fairness with a Recommendation on access to social protection for the almost 40% of people employed in the EU who are either in an “atypical” employment situation or self-employed.

Both proposals were put forward by the European Commission in March as part of a “social fairness package”.

Commissioner interview

The package also contains a very useful document for stakeholders: a Communication on how to implement the European Pillar of Social Rights which, for each of the 20 principles contained in the Pillar, recalls:

• the legal framework, 
• the respective competences of the EU and the Member States, including the role of the social partners and civil society, and
• recent EU-level action in each area.

The article on the social fairness package contains an interview with Marianne Thyssen, European Commissioner in charge of Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility.

Two anniversaries

2018 marks the sixtieth anniversary of the first European legislation on cross-border social security coordination and the 50^th one of the first European law on the free movement of people.

The special feature of this issue is therefore devoted to fair cross-border mobility. It starts by giving the facts, in an article based on the 2017 annual report on intra-EU labour mobility which was published in March 2018.

In 2016, 17 million EU citizens of all ages were residing in another EU Member State, a figure that increases by 5% each year. This report:

• focuses on the gender dimension of free movement,
• investigates to what extent language is a barrier and
• contains a fascinating section on the mobility of health professionals, with some surprising findings!

The special feature also gives an overview of the evolution of EU free movement and social security coordination policy from 1957 to present day, and explains how the pan-European EURES network of employment services is turning into a fully-fledged cross-border job placement instrument, as the reform adopted in 2016 is being gradually implemented.

New Director General

Fair mobility is also addressed in other sections of the magazine. You will find an:

• interview with Denis Genton, head of the Commission’s free movement of workers service,
• article written by Jean-Christophe Bonnin, EURES National Coordinator for France, and
• article on an EU-funded project which, from 2014 to 2016, experimented innovative forms of cross-border support to posted workers in nine countries.

For the first time, the editorial is signed by Joost Korte, the new Director General of the European Commission’s Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion DG.

Social Agenda 51 – Fair mobility and social fairness  

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