Debate: Introduction of a European social security pass for improving the digital enforcement of social security rights and fair mobility
Date: MONDAY, 22 NOVEMBER 2021
Speaker: Nicolas Schmit
Language: EN

The delivery of digital public services is crucial to improve public sector efficiency and respond to evolving citizens’ needs and requests for more efficient interactions with administrations. The digitalisation of social security coordination is key to ensure the effective portability of social rights and therefore contributes to fairer mobility. The digitalisation of social security coordination should take place within the overall digital transformation of public administration across Europe, while taking into account the constantly evolving labour markets with a view to ensure a fair and sustainable mobility for workers. This is particularly relevant for workers and citizens who, in view of exercising their right to free movement, still need to deal with paper—based procedures, for instance to prove that they are covered by the social security of their home country. A new system will also facilitate and simplify business for those enterprises that provide cross-border services in the internal markets.  To address these challenges, we announced in the European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan the launch of the European social security pass project, first as a pilot project. This intends to substitute the European social security number initiative, which was discontinued following thorough assessments, as you may have also seen in the documents that my services shared with you. In 2018, the Regulatory Scrutiny Board gave a very negative overall opinion on this project by the previous Commission. The European social security pass pilot project is exploring a digital solution to facilitate interactions of mobile citizens with social security institutions, healthcare providers, labour inspectorates and other relevant actors across Europe, thus allowing the cross-border verification of their social security coverage and entitlements. This will be relevant for the portable document A1 in the framework of the ongoing coordination of social security systems. The aim is not to create new rights, but to facilitate and simplify the portability of social security rights and thereby contribute to the exercise of the right to free movement of people. Notably, the portability of social security entitlements, which is enshrined in the EU’s social security coordination rules and prevents people from being left without protection in cross-border situations, is key to ensure that workers’ mobility is fair.  Aspects related to labour law and working conditions are outside the scope of this project, but it should be recalled that a number of concrete instruments and policies have been developed over recent years in the field of labour law and working conditions, such as the recent creation of the European Labour Authority, the European platform tackling undeclared work, and the adoption of the Transparent and Predictable Working Conditions Directive that will enter into force next year.  The Commission stands firm in its commitment to upholding EU legislation and continues working with the Member States to ensure that the relevant rules are correctly transposed and applied. We are working on the S—pass project based on the lessons learned from setting up other digital systems in the field. We aim to leverage and build on other relevant initiatives, such as the Single Digital Gateway Regulation and possibly the proposed EU digital identity framework. We have also paid very close attention from the outset to technical feasibility, as well as to the concrete, political and financial commitment of the Member States. It is obvious that data protection plays an essential role in the whole approach.  The assessment of the results of this pilot phase – to be completed, I would like to say by the latest 2023 – will feed into our future initiative. The pilot, which started in March 2021, is led by the Commission and the Italian social security institutions. I am pleased to note that so far 14 countries have expressed their interest in the project, but I also have to say that I regret to see that none of them have committed to participate in the testing of the solutions with the Italian social security institutions. A further commitment of the Member States and their institutions, including the testing of the envisaged solution, is therefore essential for the pilot project to progress and finally to come to a final system.  It is of paramount importance that Member States commit to the full implementation of this pilot project as a preliminary step for the introduction of the fully fledged digital system we all want. Therefore, the Commission is actively calling on the Member States to join the project and to be more deeply involved in its activities. Their early involvement and active participation would be instrumental in assessing their national capacities and constraints, and we all know that all social security in the Member States is very specific. As you may know, this was a key message that I conveyed to the EU labour ministers during the Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council meeting on 15 October this year – a few weeks ago. Moreover, I will also send a new letter to the ministers responsible for employment and social affairs to reiterate and forcefully confirm such a call.  I count on Parliament’s continuous support – as expressed today, I hope – in view of taking a decisive step towards the digitalisation of social security systems and towards a more efficient and fairer system of workers’ mobility. In this regard, I would also like to thank you for your work on the draft resolution on S—Pass, calling for an ambitious initiative to improve the digital enforcement of social security rights.