En studie i rött? – Administrativa kommissionens roll i efterdyningarna av pandemin

The pandemic has changed working patterns in Europe, with a greater awareness of the balance between work and well-being. More companies have introduced more flexible working policies, with the possibility of teleworking several days a week.

These new digital work patterns challenge the current coordination of Member States’ social security systems under Regulation 883/2004, which designates the Member State where the work is carried out as the competent state. However, continuing to enforce the rules of the Regulation when digital teleworking has become the new normal risks being counterproductive in terms of free movement of persons. Regardless this, the Commission has not made any proposal for the possibility of more extensive teleworking in the current revision of Regulation 883/2004. Instead, the Administrative Commission, a body attached to the European Commission, has adopted a guidance note on telework from 1.6.2023, which sets out the possibilities for telework under Regulation 883/2004. In addition, the Administrative Commission developed a multilateral framework agreement, the Framework Agreement on the application of Article 16(1) of Regulation (EC) No 883/2004 in cases of habitual cross-border telework, which allows for much more extensive telework.

These are non-transparent processes in which national experts have developed initiatives which, although they do not constitute Union law, have long-reaching legal effects. These processes raise the question of the mandate of the Administrative Commission and, above all, of the role that the Administrative Commission can and must play, in constitutional terms, with regard to the coordination of the social security systems of the Member States as prescribed by the Union legislator.