Council and Parliament strike provisional deal on social security coordination 20:05 The EU Council and the European Parliament have reached a provisional agreement on new[...]

Today, the Cyprus presidency of the Council reached a provisional agreement with the European Parliament on updated rules on the coordination of national social security systems. The revision aims to modernise the rules, making them clearer, fairer and simpler to enforce.

The revised rules are central to strengthening fair labour mobility and will enhance social security coordination rules across the European Union while protecting citizens' rights. The deal still needs to be confirmed by both institutions before being formally adopted.

The draft amending regulation seeks to further facilitate EU citizens' freedom of movement. It focuses on five key areas: unemployment benefits, long-term care benefits, access to welfare benefits for economically inactive persons, family benefits and applicable legislation for posted workers and persons working in two or more member states.

Next steps

The provisional agreement will now have to be endorsed by the Council and the Parliament. It will then formally be adopted by both institutions following legal-linguistic revision.

Background

This draft legislation amends regulations 883/2004 and 987/2009 on coordination of social security systems. The revision aims to:

• clarifying the circumstances in which member states can limit access to social benefits claimed by economically inactive EU mobile citizens
• establishing a coherent regime for the coordination of long-term care benefits
• proposing new arrangements for the coordination of unemployment benefits in cross-border cases
• introducing new provisions for the coordination of family benefits
• clarifying the conflict rules on applicable legislation and the relationship with Directive 96/71/EC on the posting of workers in the framework of the provision of services

• EU rules on coordination of social security systems (background information)