Mînzatu: "The Single Market is one of Europe's biggest achievements"

"Check against delivery" We often say that the Single Market is one of Europe's biggest achievements. Almost 20 million Europeans live in another EU country, cross a border for work or are sent abroad temporarily by their employer. Over the years, we have built detailed rules to protect their rights, including access to healthcare, pensions and social security. Just a few months ago, after ten years of negotiations, we reached an historic agreement to update our social security rules. We have made real progress. But people still face barriers getting the protection they need, and companies still struggle with complicated procedures. Today we are taking a concrete step to really simplify our internal market and make labour mobility fairer for workers. The Fair Labour Mobility Package we just adopted in college is composed of six legislative proposals: Regulation on ESSPASS; Regulation on ELA; Regulation on Skills Portability Act; Directive on Professional Qualifications+; Delegated Directive on Physiotherapists; Directive Third Country National Qualifications. Let me summarise the package in 5 messages. My first message: we move from paper-based to a digitalised labour mobility. Every company and worker in Europe knows about the lengthy processes to get the famous Portable Document A1 for posting, which costs time and money. With ESSPASS we fully digitalise the process to request and receive social security documents, starting with PDA1, and continuing with healthcare, pensions, unemployment and sickness benefits. The gamechanger: from endless paperwork to one mobile phone app, standardised and verifiable in real time, that saves time and money for workers, companies and authorities. Second message: better enforcement through a stronger European Labour Authority. For our businesses to perform and for our workers to be protected, we need to make sure that rules are clear and respected. This means: first, stronger inspections — ELA should have better data analysis capacity and should be clearly supported by national inspectorates. Second, clear competences on third country nationals — migration is a reality, and when ELA performs its controls, it needs to be able to inspect the working conditions of migrant workers, to combat labour exploitation and fight social dumping. Third, providing personalised information and counselling — ELA will be able to fund organisations that advise workers and employers about their rights and obligations, inspired by Fair Mobilität. Third message: wherever you move in Europe, your skills move with you. This will be a revolution. Today we launch a real single market of skills. With the Skills Portability Act we will digitalise all qualifications from secondary school to PhD, to the benefit of all European citizens — again, all standardised, secured and verifiable in real time in a digital app on our mobile phones. People will no longer need to produce and send scanned copies of their qualifications, pay for the certification of their authenticity, or obtain proof of their qualification level. Fourth message: faster recognition of qualifications in the EU. Digitalising qualifications is a first step. The second is making it easier to access the 5,700 regulated professions — easier for companies to hire critically needed talent such as engineers, electricians and IT experts. Today, for an Italian engineer to work in Germany it takes, by law, at least four months to get his title recognised. For a Spanish nurse to work in Belgium it takes at least three months. And so many times, the wait is significantly longer, with negative consequences for the professionals and the economy. With the revision of the Professional Qualifications directive, we accelerate internal mobility for EU nationals: we reduce the duration of recognition procedures; we create one single interface, available in all EU official languages, which every citizen can use to apply for recognition in every member state; and thanks to AI, we will also allow citizens to upload their documents in any EU language, with translation provided automatically. We then propose to expand the automatic recognition of qualifications to an eighth profession: physiotherapist. And finally, we have identified 10 new professions, such as civil engineers, biomedical laboratory technicians and electricians, for which we will work with member states so they will be covered by automatic recognition. Fifth message: attracting the best talent from outside the EU. We have two types of problems. Today, if you want to come from the US to work in the EU, it will take you around 14 months, for example as an engineer, to have your qualifications recognised. At the same time, in 2023, 40% of highly-educated third country nationals already in the EU were working below their qualification level — double the rate for EU nationals. With the proposed directive on the qualifications of third country nationals, we will create common rules across the EU to get their titles recognised: same timelines in all member states, rights to appeal, adaptation measures and the same document requirements. The proposal includes an EU certification system that will apply to universities abroad, proving that they comply with EU standards — if they meet our standards, their graduates will be able to work in the EU in their professions. The message we want to convey with this Fair Labour Mobility Package is that wherever you move in the EU, your social rights are protected and your talent is recognised. And, as a consequence, European SMEs and businesses are supported. I am ready to start working with this House right away, and I count on your support to take these proposals forward so that they deliver concrete results for our citizens and our economy.