The European Commission today presented a new action plan to promote job mobility across Europe by tackling the remaining obstacles faced by people seeking to work in another EU country. It puts forward a new integrated approach and lists 15 concrete actions for the period 2007-2010 involving national, regional and local – as well as European – authorities.
“Worker mobility is both a fundamental right for EU citizens and a key instrument for developing a European labour market. It helps to better match workers with jobs, overcoming bottlenecks in the labour market and allowing more people to find better jobs,” declared VladimÃr Å pidla, EU Commissioner for Employment. “But we need more cooperation among Member States and stakeholders to make sure workers can fully benefit from mobility.”
The enlargement of the EU in 2004 and 2007 increased both the opportunities for workers to find a job, and for employers to find workers. Most of the EU-15 Member States have lifted or eased restrictions they applied for citizens from eight of the Member States which joined the EU in 2004, creating a large potential labour force to cope with the challenges of ageing and globalisation.
However, worker mobility in the EU remains relatively low – around 2% of working-age citizens from one of the 27 EU Member States currently live and work in another Member State – despite recent increases. Aside from an uncertainty over the advantages of being mobile, individuals still face a number of hurdles to mobility. These can include legal and administrative obstacles, cost and availability of housing, employment of spouses and partners, portability of pensions, linguistic barriers and recognition of qualifications in other Member States.
Today’s report puts forward 15 actions to tackle these obstacles over the next three years. They cover four main areas:
·        Improving existing legislation and administrative practices on social security coordination and on the portability of supplementary pensions
·        Ensure policy support from authorities at all levels, for example by supporting the implementation of the European Qualifications Framework
·        Reinforce EURES (European Employment Services) as the one-stop shop for job mobility in Europe, by improving services to targeted groups such as long-term unemployed, young workers, older workers, women, researchers, self-employed workers, seasonal workers)
·        Increase awareness of the possibilities and advantages of job mobility among the wider public, by organising European job fairs and supporting pilot projects.
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