ELA Programme 2023

In its Annual Programme for 2023 - 2025, the European Labour Authority (ELA) is pursuing various strategic goals that are also of major importance for the German social insurance system as far as the free movement and posting of workers and the related information services are concerned. 

In its Programme for 2023, the ELA has further specified its ideas on posting of workers and their free movement. An important approach here is to offer a coherent range of information at European and national level on specific issues and to create a cooperation framework so that "interoperable" information is ultimately available. 

Posting of construction workers

In 2023, the ELA will focus on the posting of workers in the construction sector. In this context, the authority looks at how the individual Member States proceed in their communication on a purely national level and which offers are worth imitating. The ELA is also running an information and awareness campaign on this and has recently put a  factsheet on the rights and obligations for posted workers from the construction sector online.

In Germany, there are already a wide variety of information services:

With the EU Equal Treatment Authority, the Federal Government has created a central institution for foreign workers in Germany that provides general comprehensive information for posted workers in many languages. It also deals explicitly with social security aspects and in particular health insurance . The health and pension insurance companies also offer information, but this is not specifically tailored to the construction sector.

On the part of the social partners, the trade unions have a very good information and counselling offer with "Fair Mobility" - not only for the construction sector.

The Employer's Liability Insurance Association for the Construction Industry provides foreign employers with information both for posting from Germany and vice versa.

Free movement & seasonal work

The issue of "seasonal work" is also an important point for the ELA, as many Europeans work temporarily in another country especially in the agricultural sector. One German project in particular received an award from the authority, which involved cooperation between different agencies regarding information and support for Moldovan seasonal workers .

Various German agencies also offer a wide range of information on this topic. The EU equal opportunities body has a wide range of information on seasonal work on its website and already refers to agricultural accident insurance in the event of an accident at work.

The Social Insurance for Agriculture, Forestry and Horticulture (SVLFG) not only offers German employers comprehensive information on seasonal work, but also has a multilingual app for foreign workers.

Conclusion:

At European level, "Your Europe" is the information portal (Single Digital Gateway / SDG) to provide mobile citizens with basic information on European law. From there, they can obtain targeted information on the country of employment via the national portals of the individual Member States, as the above-mentioned sources of the German (social) institutions show. 

In order to meet the objective of Regulation (EU) No. 2018/1724 on the establishment of a single digital gateway (SDG), the ELA should cooperate closely with the portal and provide any information directly in the SDG.  Where particular attention needs to be paid to individual issues, closer cooperation with Member States would be desirable. Common information services could then be made available via the SDG and the national portals.