Questions and Answers on the Commission proposal on a single digital declaration portal to reduce the
Q&A: A single digital declaration portal for posted workers
Why the need for a new regulation to establish the public interface?
A legislative proposal is necessary to expand the use of IMI and to provide for the interaction of the public interface with IMI itself. Personal data is furthermore processed in the creation, submission, and management of declarations of posted workers in the public interface. The proposal establishes the appropriate legal basis in EU law for the processing of personal data, in accordance with the rules on personal data protection laid down in Regulations (EU) 2016/679 and (EU) 2018/1725 of the European Parliament and of the Council.
Why the need for a new public interface for posted worker declarations?
The freedom to provide services includes the right of service providers established in one Member State to provide services in another Member State. To fulfil service contracts, service providers may deploy their workers to other Member States, a practice known as posting of workers. A posted worker is an employee who is sent by their employer to carry out a service in another Member State on a temporary basis. In Europe, around 5 million workers were temporarily posted to provide services in another Member State in 2022, with an upward trend over recent years.
EU law defines a set of mandatory rules regarding the terms and conditions of employment to be applied to posted workers, to guarantee that rights and working conditions for posted workers are protected throughout the EU. To ensure the effective monitoring of compliance with these rules and the protection of worker rights, host Member States can ask service providers established in other Member States to declare the posting of workers to their territory, provided that such a declaration obligation is justified and proportionate in accordance with EU law. All Member States have introduced such a declaration obligation, which, however, differ widely in form and information requested.
Businesses continuously highlight that the current declaration procedures represent a key administrative burden in the Single Market. The creation of a common electronic declaration portal for declarations of posted workers will help to streamline the reporting obligations and significantly reduce the administrative burden for businesses, including SMEs.
What will the new interface look like?
The public interface will mirror the EU Portal for road transport posting declarations (RTPD), an e-platform already available for declarations of posted workers in the road transport sector. Use of the portal will be free of charge and enable businesses in a user-friendly way to submit posting declarations to the Member States making use of the public interface, and to manage the posting declarations they submitted. The public interface will be available in all official EU languages, with a user-friendly registration process and the possibility for businesses to reuse data from previously submitted posting declarations.
What information will be required on the standard form used in the public interface?
The specific content of the standard form will be defined by the Commission in an implementing act, based on input of participating Member States.
In general, this standard form will provide the relevant information that may be necessary to allow factual controls at the workplace, in accordance with EU law. It will contain information related to the service provider, the posted worker, the posting assignment, the contact person for competent authorities and the service recipient.
How will the proposal help reduce businesses' administrative burden?
Streamlining posting declarations will significantly reduce the administrative burden for businesses, including SMEs. A multilingual public interface using a standard form will allow posting companies to make their posting declarations in one place for all postings to the Member States making use of the public interface. They will also be able to make the posting declaration in their own language.
The public interface will lead to significant time savings when filling in the prior declaration. Preliminary estimates point to an average reduction of approximately 73% in the time needed to complete a prior declaration compared to the current different national declaration systems.
In this way, the proposal will also help to contribute to the Commission's commitment to reduce reporting requirements resulting from EU legislation. In particular, it will contribute to the Commission's aim to rationalise and simplify reporting requirements as outlined in its Communication on ‘Long-term competitiveness of the EU', with the ultimate aim to reduce the associated administrative burden by 25%, without undermining the related policy objectives.
Will the public interface be used by all Member States?
The public interface will be made available by the European Commission for voluntary use by Member States. Member States who wish to maintain their national declaration system are under no obligation to make use of the public interface offered by the Commission. When Member States decide to make use of the public interface, they will have to ensure that service providers posting workers to their territory can comply with their obligation to declare the posting of workers using that portal, without filling in additional forms or declaring posting in parallel in national portals.
How many countries are expected to make use of the public interface? What will the Commission do to ensure a broad take-up?
Our proposal to make the public interface available on a voluntary basis will allow Member States to join the single declaration portal at their own pace. We are convinced that the early adopters' streamlining of administrative processes and enhanced protection of workers' rights will speak for themselves. Already before today's proposal, an initial group of nine Member States have announced that they will align their current information requirements with a common form devised by a Commission expert group ahead of the new portal. That common form can be the basis of a future standard form adopted by an implementing act, and the Commission proposal foresees a mechanism allowing the Commission to adjust the standard form on request by Member States.
How will the public interface benefit public administrations?
The public interface will be connected to the Internal Market Information System (IMI) made available by the Commission. Making use of IMI will allow Member States to discontinue their self-standing national declaration systems when connecting to IMI, saving the costs of operating and maintaining these systems. IMI will also provide a digital solution for Member States that do not yet use a digital national declaration system, without the need to invest time and resources into its development. Member States who wish to use the portal while maintaining their national digital databases for the monitoring of postings can benefit from the possibility to connect those to the public interface.
The new public interface will reuse a similar EU-managed public interface which already exists for the declaration of postings in the road transport sector. Aligning the administrative procedure for the declaration of posted workers in other sectors with the procedure for declaring posted drivers in the road transport sector will further help to streamline the use of databases and administrative procedures.
How will the proposal support public administrations in the monitoring of compliance with rules on posted workers?
The submission of posting declarations via a common public interface will allow for a better and more uniform application of EU law. The fact that posting companies will no longer need to use different national declaration portals, each featuring different information requests, will make it easier to declare posted workers. This will reduce the cases of non-compliance and lead to increased transparency. The initiative will thus facilitate effective, adequate, and targeted inspections by Member States' competent authorities, contributing to the protection of posted workers.
How will the new public interface help to improve cross-border cooperation among public administrations?
Administrative cooperation between national authorities in charge of monitoring compliance with rules on the posting of workers is implemented through the Internal Market Information System (‘IMI'). The system allows an authority in one Member State to request information or assistance from an authority in another Member State. IMI plays a key role in supporting the strengthened administrative cooperation and mutual assistance in the area of posting of workers.
To facilitate this administrative cooperation between competent authorities and to simplify requests for mutual assistance, information submitted in posting declarations will be made available directly in IMI. A repository in IMI will allow national competent authorities to check the details of posting declarations submitted by posting companies.
Will the new proposal ensure that the rights of posted workers are sufficiently protected?
EU law on the posting of workers aims to guarantee respect for an appropriate level of protection of the rights of posted workers, in particular the enforcement of the terms and conditions of employment, while facilitating the freedom to provide services in the single market.
The proposal supports these objectives. It does not amend the existing EU legal framework for the posting of workers. Rather, it facilitates the submission of posting declarations where required, the administrative cooperation between Member States and the effective monitoring of compliance with the applicable terms and conditions of employment.
The public interface will moreover provide the possibility for posted workers to receive a copy of their declarations. This will make posted workers informed actors in the procedure, helping them to exercise their rights. This possibility does not exist today in national declaration systems.
For More Information
Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council — on a public interface connected to the Internal Market Information System for the declaration of posting of workers and amending Regulation (EU) No 1024/2012
