The European Parliament’s Employment and Social Affairs Committee on 7 May backed a provisional deal that keeps the current rules for multi-country drivers in place. The committee voted 47 to 3, with 4 abstentions. The full Parliament and the Council still need to sign it off.
The agreement is part of a wider revision of the EU’s social security coordination rules. For road transport, the main change is what is no longer in the text. Earlier drafts pointed towards a system in which operators would have had to flag multi-country work in advance. That route has been dropped, and the existing rules for deciding which country’s social security system applies to a driver working in several member states stay in place.
35 working days to settle which system covers a driver
The deal introduces a 35-working-day deadline for national authorities to respond to queries about, or requests to withdraw, a social security determination.
The clock is meant to shorten the periods when an operator sits between two member states arguing over jurisdiction — a position that can leave companies exposed to retroactive contributions and drivers without clear social security certainty.
Procedures for issuing and checking the document confirming the applicable legislation, the A1 in current practice, are also tightened.
Decisions valid for up to 24 months
The applicable social security system will be set in advance, based on the driver’s expected pattern of work over the following 12 months. That determination can then remain valid for up to 24 months, narrowing the window for retroactive reassessments and giving planners more stable ground for cross-border rosters.
Raluca Marian, IRU EU director, said the vote supported “a more predictable and workable framework” for cross-border transport operations and confirmed the committee had backed the sector’s main priorities on the file.
Wider reform around the carve-out
The package updates Regulations 883/2004 and 987/2009, which coordinate rather than harmonise national social security systems. Member states keep control of their own schemes; the EU rules exist so workers do not lose protection when they move or work across borders.
The provisional agreement also covers unemployment, family and long-term care benefits, posted workers and cooperation between national authorities. The road transport provisions, including the dropped notification requirement and the 35-working-day deadline, sit inside that broader text and will move to formal adoption together with it.
This is not the same as Posting of Drivers
The agreement should not be confused with the separate Posting of Drivers rules introduced under Mobility Package I. The social security coordination deal decides which national social security system applies to a driver working across borders. In practice, that means issues such as A1 documents, social security contributions, disputes between national authorities and the period for which a determination remains valid.
Posting rules do something different: they decide when a driver is treated as posted to another member state and when the operator must submit a posting declaration and comply with host-country employment conditions, including remuneration rules where applicable.
So the committee vote does not remove the Posting of Drivers regime. Cabotage and some cross-trade operations can still trigger posting obligations, while bilateral transport remains treated differently under the Mobility Package rules. What the new deal changes is the social security side: it keeps the current framework for multi-country drivers and adds clearer deadlines for authorities when they check or challenge which country’s system applies.
