CROSS-BORDER MINI-TWINNING

EURADRIA AND NORTH PORTUGAL/GALICIA: ITALY, SLOVENIA, SPAIN, PORTUGAL

The EU’s internal border regions cover 40 % of the EU territory and are home to almost 2 million cross-border commuters. In 2018, more than 1.5 million people in the EU lived in one country and worked in another.

CROSS-BORDER MINI-TWINNING BETWEEN EURADRIA AND NORTH PORTUGAL/GALICIA: ITALY, SLOVENIA, SPAIN, PORTUGAL

Cross-border workers face a number of obstacles on a daily basis, including differences in national practices, social security systems, tax rules and legal systems. In addition, public transport is often less developed in cross-border regions than systems within individual countries, which further hampers cross-border job mobility.

Under the aegis of EaSI, the EU programme for employment and social innovation, EURES helps cross-border workers to overcome these obstacles by offering financial support to cross-border partnerships.

These partnerships involve EURES members and partners working together across borders to support the mobility of workers and employers. Organisations which are not part of the EURES network can also participate, if they play a relevant role in the regional market for job mobility. Partners usually include public employment services, social partners and organisations such as universities, business associations, trade unions and chambers of commerce.

The main objective of the partnerships is to share information and provide advice on cross-border professional mobility to jobseekers and employers, offer placement opportunities and provide pre- and post-employment services. Expert groups are available to support workers at every stage of their careers and answer any questions on the practicalities of working cross-border.

The partnerships also monitor mobility flows across the respective borders, labour market developments and identify obstacles to the free movement of workers within the regional cross-border labour market.

In 2020 and 2021, under the 2018 call for proposals, 8 cross-border partnerships, involving 14 countries, are receiving funding from the EaSI programme. In addition, other partnerships are active without EaSI support.

As part of the EURADRIA 20/21 project activity, a twinning took place between the EURADRIA cross-border and the one active between Northern Portugal and Galicia, in order to jointly explore issues concerning obstacles to mobility and common solutions within the two territories.

Social Security, Taxation, Services, Unemployment and how to manage activities following the health emergency were the topics of the round of collaborative meetings.

The meetings, which took place online, focused on the following specific topics:

TOPIC 1: Unemployment benefits and social security (20/09/2021)
TOPIC 2: Taxation (01/10/2021)
TOPIC 3: Joint cross-border labour inspections and labour market (07/10/2021)

The methodology included the establishment of technical working groups, composed of the contact persons of each theme, and the identification of some relevant or frequent obstacles and/or problems, accompanied by the solutions identified or to be identified.