UEAPME S Position Paper on the Current State of Play of the Proposed Directive on Professional

UEAPME’s response to the consultation of the social partners on the European Year of Mobility for Workers

Introduction

UEAPME welcomes and supports the Commissions’ initiative to declare 2006 the European year of workers mobility.

Mobility of workers is not just one of the fundamental freedoms of the European Union, but also a necessary tool for a good labour market functioning. The necessity for an increase of labour mobility across Europe becomes even more urgent, when one considers the demographic changes that occur in many EU member states.

UEAPME is well aware that workers mobility is an important condition for the creation of a true European labour market and is therefore in favour of any initiative supporting workers’ mobility.

In addition increased mobility of workers will help to forge a more real European citizenship among European people.

The commission proposes 2006 as the European year of Mobility of workers. In this context the commission has consulted the social partners, and invited them:

• To comment on the draft objectives described above,
• To suggest concrete activities that could be financed in the areas of awareness raising, exchange of good practice and improving the knowledge base on geographical and occupational mobility,
• To suggest themes, of European interest, for studies that could contribute to further understand the questions related to occupational and geographic mobility,
• To point out which kind of complementary action and initiatives could be undertaken in 2006 by the European social partners to enhance the impact of the European Year of Mobility of workers.

General remarks

The relatively low level of workers mobility across Europe can be explained by a multiplicity of factors and can therefore only be addressed through a multidimensional approach.

A number of formal and informal barriers to the free movement of workers still exist. The problems cuts across the various EU policy areas - employment and social affairs, internal market, education and training, fiscal policy, immigration, etc… but also within national policies (employment, social protection, welfare, education and training, etc…)

Some of the more obvious barriers are the lack of languages, the limited knowledge of the rights concerning the free movement of workers, problems with the recognition of qualifications and professional experience, the lack of information on the national labour markets, etc...

Less obvious, but at least as strong as the first ones, are the cultural, sociological and psychological barriers. Overcoming these barriers requires long-haul efforts at all levels, because they require an in-depth evolution of mentalities.

Some of these barriers can be addressed at European level while others need to be tackled at national, regional or local level, involving national decision makers and society at large.

UEAPME is the opinion that:

1. the European Year of Mobility for Workers should respect the principle of subsidiarity and be primarily focused on European level. However it does not mean that national, regional, local initiatives should not be supported, but they should be more bottom-up based on the daily reality.

1. Commission initiatives should embrace the multi-faceted dimension of the barriers to mobility

1. the Commission should facilitate the exchange of good practices

1. the Commission should not limit its action on mobility for “employed” workers, but should consider as well mobility for self-workers, small entrepreneurs, craftsmen, apprentices.

Specific remarks

1 – On thedraft objectives

(a) to raise awareness;

of the rights of workers to free movement between Member States

of the existing possibilities for geographic and occupational mobility and of the services which exist to support it;

of the need for action by supporting services to take account of the costs faced by potentially mobile workers, both within and between Member states

UEAPME considers the objective of awareness raising on rights to free movement and possibilities for occupational mobility as one of the most important task of the European Year of Mobility.

Very often workers refrain from considering working in other Member States, because they are not aware of the existing possibilities.

In this context EURES, as one of the main services for mobility of workers should be stronger promoted. Besides the use of websites, the Commission should consider focused campaigns on specific sectors and targeted public like the young people immediately after their education period or vocational training, the young workers, etc…

(b) to promote the exchange of good practice between stakeholders concerned, in particular public authorities and institutions, social partners and the private sector

The exchange of good practices is a very useful tool to disseminate valuable experiences. It should take place among different stakeholders and in particular among institutions and public authorities which very often lack of knowledge about the other countries.

Here again, National Employment Services and EURES should serve as a good basis for organising the dissemination of good practices.

(c) to promote more in-depth study of the scale and nature of geographic and occupational mobility within the Union with a view to a better understanding of the nature of the barriers that need to be overcome.

UEAPME agrees on the necessity to define more precisely the nature and evaluate the significance of the various barriers for a true European mobility.

The multiplicity of causes for the limited mobility across Europe, as mentioned before, could be better understood through a serious of complementary studies on the different barriers to workers mobility.

This would give a sound basis on which then initiatives could be carried out to overcome these barriers.

Concrete activities

UEAPME and its members have already initiated various activities, including projects and awareness raising campaign, to increase labour mobility inside the EU.

Examples of these activities:

1. Project “Chance Europe – Chance Europa” –

Carried out in 2003-2004 in the framework of the EURES Campaign for mobility, this project aims at increasing mobility of apprentices and young workers in the craft sector between France and Germany. The project was managed by the Assemblée Permanente des Chambres de Métiers – APCM (F) and Zentralverband des Deutschen Handwerks - ZDH (D). “Chance Europe” proposes information on mobility through CD-Roms, Internet, Regional mobility days, Award for SMEs promoting mobility, a short movie about mobility of skilled crafts enterprises and their apprentices.

1. MoveArt- Promoting trans-national mobility in the art professions

Carried out in 2001-2003 with the support of the LEONARDO Da VINCI II programme, this project aimed to contribute to the employability and adaptability of art professionals in the art professions in Europe. The project foresees the development of multi-actor partnerships and the creation of a mobility network in the art professions.

Possible further activities

UEAPME could imagine further activities, similar to the examples given, to support the mobility of workers:

• One could extend the activity of APCM and ZDH to a wider initiative of crafts and SME organisations within Europe.
• The creation of integrated services, like “one–stop-shop” facilities for mobility, would greatly help individual mobility projects, in particular for young people in small and micro-enterprises, as well workers and entrepreneurs.
• In addition to mobility services, financial support is an important levier to stimulate mobility among young workers. Access to Leonardo da Vinci financial grants should be substantially simplified and increased for individual mobility projects.
• The organisation of seminars between national decision-makers, directors of training institutes as well as teachers and trainers to enhance mobility.

Possible themes for studies

A combination of general and more specific studies on barriers to workers mobility would be useful.

The general one could be a large-scale questionnaire to workers asking why they do not use more often the freedom of workers inside the EU. The EuroBarometer tool could be very useful in this matter.

Each of the possible reasons (limited language capabilities, bureaucratic burden, social protection, recognition of qualifications and/or cultural, psychological reasons) would be a potential theme for a more specific study and the sum of the various studies would help to have a clearer view of the multidimensional barriers to workers mobility.

Part of these studies should include an analysis why certain Member States have higher labour mobility than others and how this is linked to the level of unemployment in that country.

Additionally, one should examine if certain barriers are more prominent in specific Member States rather than in other.

One topic that would be very interesting to study, is an analysis if and why small businesses and their workers are limited in their mobility. Is this based on fiscal, cultural, technical or other types of barriers, and what are the possible remedies at national and/or European level.

Finally, UEAPME will consider with the other European social partners the possibility to include some forms of complementary action into the upcoming new work program of the European social partners for 2006-2010.

The European social partners already carried out a seminar to identify areas where joint actions by the social partners at EU level could help addressing obstacles to mobility.

The next work programme will be finalised by the end of 2005.

Conclusion:

• UEAPME fully supports the initiative of having a European Year of Mobility for Workers in 2006.
• Initiatives should help awareness raising on the advantages of mobility during the professional life.
• Mobility of workers should be not limited to “employed” workers, but also cover self-employed, entrepreneurs, craftsmen, apprentices.
• Having in depth studies on obstacles to mobility could help decision makers and socio-economic actors to better develop strategies for a future increased mobility of the workforce.

21/03/05

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