Politics and Analysis

The Confederation of Danish Employers to the new European Commission: Safeguard free movement

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This week Ursula von der Leyen’s European Commission was approved, and the new team of Commissioners can now finally get started. One of the new boys in the class is Nicolas Schmidt — admittedly a seasoned politician and even a former labour minister from Luxembourg, yet new in the role as a Commissioner.

From an employer’s perspective, he is, without a doubt, in charge of the single most important domain in the EU. And we would naturally want him to get off to a good start. Hence, we are happy to share three well-meant pieces of advice and recommendations for the new job.

Safeguard free movement

First of all: Safeguard free movement. There cannot be any doubt that the free movement of labour has been an invaluable benefit for Europe as a whole — and, in particular, for Denmark. But we cannot take it for granted if we want to secure free movement for future generations. And it is under pressure these days. We need to avoid additional barriers to Europeans’ freedom to live and work wherever they want to. There are still way too many bureaucratic barriers associated with moving to another EU country. These barriers need to be dismantled. The new European Labour Authority, ELA, can play an important role to this end.

Strengthen the social dialogue

Secondly: The social dialogue throughout the EU must be strengthened. Unfortunately, the involvement of the social partners in recent years has been limited. A great place to start for the new Commission is to revive the social dialogue as the focal point for the European labour market policy. And to this end, they should use us, the social partners, even more in the European Semester.

Third of all: It is important that the new European Commission respects the principle of subsidiarity. This is particularly true in the labour market area, where many challenges are best addressed by the Member States themselves. This is also explicitly stated in the Treaty.

Other issues

It comes as no surprise, that Denmark has particular concerns. We have a long and strong tradition of social dialogue, where the social partners agree on wages and working conditions amongst themselves. This has given us a strong, flexible and trusting labour market, and this is naturally something we are very keen to preserve.

However, we are also very aware that people in other places are dealing with problems we in Denmark are not confronted with in the same way. The challenge faced by the Commission will be to solve these problems without violating the Treaty and without undermining a system like the Danish one, which has indeed been the key to one of the most well-functioning labour markets in Europe. And when it comes to how to best go about this, we and the other parties on the Danish labour market are more than happy to contribute.