At the beginning of this month, Centre of Social Dialogue hosted the international conference “Posting of workers in the context of regulations on the freedom of movement and coordination of social security schemes; 50 years of 1612/68 Regulation”. Among other important subjects, the discussion focused on the summary of pending works on the EU provisions on the coordination of social security schemes. Pursuant to these provisions, A1 certificates are issued.
The representatives of the European Commission not only commented on the objectives of the revised directive on posting of workers, whose final text was adopted on 21 June this year but also presented basic information about the European Labour Authority. The Authority is a new legislative initiative of the European Commission which, by a new control institution, wants to support the enforcement of the EU law. The Institution’s task is to support national control authorities, also as regards to the posting of workers. These competencies are very unclear, which was underlined by the participants of the discussion.
Polish Logistics and Transport Union (TLP) underlined the need to consider specific nature and problems of the international road transport industry. The initiative itself was criticized by the members of the Alliance for the Future of Transport, of which TLP is a founding member. The Alliance issued an official call to the members of the European Parliament responsible for the above initiative.
A1 certificate – what is in the draft?
As regards to the posting of workers and A1 certificates, the following solutions were politically agreed upon and introduced into the draft:
– the requirement to register a worker in the national social insurance scheme 3 months before posting them;
– introduction of the criteria for verification of the place of factual business (verification of the place of: making the most important economic decisions, performing main administrative functions, residence of main directors/executives, annual meetings, keeping administrative and accounting documents, financial transactions, recording working time and providing most of the services).
– definition of fraud (intentional act or omission to gain or receive social benefits or avoid the payment of social contributions, contrary to the law)
– possibility to correct or withdraw the A1 certificate with retroactive effect.
As regards to the latter of these ideas, it has been proposed that, in case of no reply to the objections of a foreign institution or an incomplete reply (according to the standards developed by the European Commission), a foreign institution may act as if the A1 certificate has never been issued. In case of a material and unresolved dispute between the institutions from the Host State and the Sending State regarding the grounds for issuing A1 certificates, the dispute may be considered by the administrative commission appointed for the monitoring of the above provisions.
We are further monitoring the regulation development process. The proposals are currently being discussed by the EU institutions.