EU: new draft directive to improve application of European workers’ rights to free movement

On April 26, the European Commission presented a draft directive “on measures facilitating the exercise of rights conferred on workers in the context of freedom of movement for workers.”  Currently, “only 3.1% of the working-age European citizens [live] in an EU Member State other than their own” the Commission points out, and 1.2 million more live in an EU Member State but work in another.  A fundamental freedom in the European project, the free movement of workers has failed.  “The gap between the rights that EU citizens have in theory and what happens in practice,” as the Commission itself puts it, can be explained by public and private employers' lack of awareness of EU rules, and workers’ lack of awareness of their rights.  To remove these obstacles to mobility, the draft directive banks on spreading information and on lessening discrimination against EU migrant workers on the grounds of nationality.  (Ref.  130284)
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Lessening discrimination against EU migrant workers on the grounds of nationality. A fundamental freedom, the free movement of EU workers is established at the highest level as the principle is written in the EU Treaty. This principle was the first foundation for equal treatment, which first served as a model for gender equality before undergoing tremendous developments with the fight against discrimination embodied by Directives 2000/43 and 2000/78*. Source of law, primary legislation, in t

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