Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions – The external dimension of EU social security coordination

In a globalised economic environment, labour mobility both within the EU and between the EU and the rest of the world is a growing reality and necessity. Social security coordination is a system of rules aimed at facilitating such mobility. The EU has had a system of social security coordination rules for mobility within the EU for over 50 years. More recently, these rules were extended to cover Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.

Social security coordination between the EU and the rest of the world is dealt with in two ways. On the one hand, there is the national approach, whereby Member States make bilateral agreements with selected third countries. This approach is patchy: there is an incomplete network of agreements, and agreements tend to have differing content from country to country.

On the other hand, a common EU approach to social security coordination with third countries is now developing. Against this background, this Communication has four aims:

– to underline that migrants and businesses from third countries, who generally see the EU as a single entity, face fragmented social security systems which create obstacles in terms of entering, moving within and leaving the EU;

– to make the case for promoting and strengthening cooperation between Member States so that a less fragmented approach to social security coordination with third countries can be developed;

– to set out the various ways in which the EU rules already impact on the external dimension and to give clear guidance on the legal relationship between EU law and national bilateral agreements;

– to describe the existing components of a common EU approach and to make proposals for developing this further.

EUR-Lex: COM(2012)153: Follow the progress of this document through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2012:153:FIN

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