FES BRIEFING STRENGTHENING THE MANDATE OF THE EUROPEAN LABOUR AUTHORITY October 2024 SUMMARY INTRODUCTION The creation of the European Labour Authority(ELA) is an effort to enhance control over and enforcement of the working conditions of migrant workers who cross the border into the EU. This contribution reflects on some of the shortcomings that have been there from the start, in terms of both the ELA’s competences and the missing links with other, sometimes more determinant policy areas in the single market, such as freedom of establish­ment and free service provision with posted workers. This is especially relevant for third-country nationals recruited to work inside the EU. Enforcing working con­ditions and tackling bogus practices involving posted third-country nationals inside EU territory should be part of the ELA’s work. In September 2017, the then acting president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, paved the way for the cre­ation of a new European institution to be charged with the control and enforcement of the labour standards and working conditions of mobile migrant labour. 1 Juncker declared that it is‘absurd to have a Banking Authority to police banking standards, but no common Labour Authority for ensuring fairness in our single market’. The adoption of Regulation (EU) 2019/1149 led to the establishment of the European Labour Authority(ELA) as a decentralised operational agency. The founding Regulation is clear about the competences of the ELA. The Authority is supposed to ensure fair and effective labour mobility across the EU and to assist Member States and the European Commission in coordinating social security systems in the EU. 2 After an inauguration ceremony in October 2019, the ELA became operational from 2020. Although this coincided with the Covid-19 pandemic, which proved a major obstacle to its operational launch, the general observation is that the ELA has functioned well. 3 ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jan Cremers is associated with the Law School of Tilburg University. He is the independent expert, nominated by the European Parliament, on the Management Board of the European Labour Authority. He has published several books on European social policy, corporate social responsibility and free movement of workers, as well as on labour migration and the enforcement of labour standards. His recent research focuses on surveys among labour migrants about their working, living and housing conditions. If it is to be even more effective, however, some serious short­comings must be tackled, in terms of both ELA competences and the missing links with adjacent policy areas and single market principles, such as freedom of establishment and free movement of services, that directly interfere with workers’ mobility. The creation of the single market in the mid-1980s has led to an opening up of national markets for products and goods, finances, services and workers, while freedom of establishment makes it easier to start businesses across borders. The single market provides a fertile breeding ground 1 In this contribution mobile migrant labour stands for EU-citizens and third-country nationals that cross-borders inside the EU for their work. Their intra-EU mobility can be based on the free movement, posting of workers rules or on other temporary schemes. 2 The webpage Corporate Documents on the ELA-website provides annual reports and work programs. For the key tasks see: https:// www.ela.europa.eu/en/about/who-we-are 3 For an evaluation of ELA’s operational functioning, see, for instance, the Belgian Presidency report: https://belgian-presidency.consilium. europa.eu/media/nvenvc42/report_ela_eu2024be.pdf 1