Initial instructions for workers’ mobility

On 30.03.2020 the European Commission published Communication C (2020) 2051 concerning the Guidelines applicable to the free movement of workers during the COVID-19 epidemic.

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Photo by Skitterphoto @Pixabay

The Guidelines have the aim of providing common criteria to all Member States regarding the restrictions applicable to the movement of workers who live in one State, but carry out work in another State (frontier workers, posted workers, seasonal workers).

These limitations are generally admissible for reasons of public order, public safety or public health, but in any case they must be necessary, proportional and based on objective and non-discriminatory reasons.

The European Commission has therefore invited Member States to take specific measures in this regard, in order to protect, in particular, workers from one State who need to travel to another State in order to carry out activities considered essential (such as related the health or food sector), taking care to ensure a coordinated and uniform approach at Community level.

More specifically, the European Commission has:

  1. invited the Member States to encourage the transit of frontier or posted workers who carry out activities deemed essential (specifically indicated in the text of the Communication in question) or activities that have not been suspended in the host State, so that they can freely access the workplace;
  2. invited the Member States to carry out the necessary health checks on workers who cross the border in a fluid manner, possibly allowing the worker to remain inside their vehicle in order not to block the flow of traffic;
  3. deemed it appropriate that the Member States agree to keep the social security and medicare legislations to which the worker is normally subject to applied in favor of the worker while on the move, even where, during the COVID-19 epidemic, factual situations arise which could lead to the application of different social security and medicare legislations.

For more information, please contact the global mobility department of Bacciardi and Partners by addressing your requests to Lorenzo Bacciardi, LL.M.  or Chiara Marracino.