Today, the Commission has proposed to establish a single digital declaration portal for companies providing services and temporarily sending workers to another Member State, known as 'posted workers'. The EU Single Market counts 5 million posted workers. One of the main administrative barriers faced by their employers is to handle multiple and diverse documentation in each Member State.
Member States will be able to use the public interface on a voluntary basis. In Member States who choose to do so, the new single digital declaration portal will reduce the administrative cost for businesses when posting their workers abroad. This will contribute to the Commission's objective of reducing companies' reporting burden by 25%, as outlined in its Communication on 'Long-term competitiveness of the EU', while fully maintaining the existing high-level of protection of rights of posted workers enshrined in EU and national legislation.
The proposal will also allow better compliance with existing rules, allowing the enforcement of fair mobility, in line with high worker protection standards. To increase transparency, Member States can also send a copy of the declaration to posted workers.
The tool proposed by the Commission will:
- Reduce the administrative burden for posting workers: A single digital declaration portal will allow service providers to use a single form instead of using 27 different national forms. On average, this will decrease by 73% the time spent on the declarations. This single form will be available in all official EU languages. The information requested is streamlined to some 30 data points. It will provide for a user-friendly one-stop shop for declaring posted workers in the EU. This will facilitate businesses' compliance with declaration obligations to competent national authorities.
- Enhance cooperation among Member States: The new portal will be part of the Internal Market Information System (IMI). Member States are already using IMI today when launching requests for information or requesting mutual assistance to monitor compliance with the rules on posting of workers. The new public interface will also be based on technical solutions already put in place for the electronic declaration of posted road transport workers, where an electronic public interface, which is also connected to the IMI, is already available since 2022.
- Support protection of workers: The simplification of the process of submitting and updating posting declarations will reduce cases of non-compliance with posting rules and increase the transparency of postings. It will facilitate carrying out of effective and targeted inspections by the Member States, contributing to the protection of posted workers' rights.
Background
The freedom to provide services includes the right for businesses to provide services in another Member State, by posting their workers there temporarily. When doing so, service providers must comply with conditions of employment in that Member State as set out in Directive 96/71/EC on the posting of workers. Member States are required to work in close cooperation and provide each other with mutual assistance to facilitate the monitoring of compliance with these terms and conditions of employment. Furthermore, Directive 2014/67/EU on the enforcement of Directive 96/71/EC provides the possibility for Member States to impose an obligation for service providers established in another Member State to make a simple posting declaration to the competent national authorities of the receiving Member State, containing the relevant information necessary to allow factual controls at the workplace.
First announced in the Update to the 2020 New Industrial Strategy, this action was part of the March 2024 Communication 'Labour and skills shortages in the EU: an action plan'. In this plan, the Commission announced that it will promote the widespread implementation of a common form of electronic format for posted worker declarations, complemented by the development of a digital multilingual portal through which companies can submit posting declarations for Member States that decide to make use of this tool. The initiative was also announced in the Commission Work Programme for 2024.
