Strengthening the rights of posted third-country nationals in their EU Member State of residence and employment

Mijke Houwerzijl; Imke van Gardingen

doi:10.1177/10242589251324658

Strengthening the rights of posted third-country nationals in their EU Member State of residence and employment

Mijke Houwerzijl^*
, Imke van Gardingen

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

This article questions the trend of admitting third-country nationals to an EU Member State for the purpose of posting them to another EU Member State. The reality of the workers concerned does not match the assumptions underlying the legal regime for intra-EU posting. As a result, it is easier to exploit their labour and their legal immigration status is jeopardised both during and after the posting. This also makes fictitious their ability to exercise rights that depend on this status, such as access to certain social security benefits. The trend of ‘labour immigration for the purpose of posting’ is fuelled by a complex and opaque interplay of regulatory frameworks and ambiguous judicial interpretation of key legal criteria for posting. Recent case-law might help to mitigate this trend. Also, a revised EU directive has potential to marginally improve the rights of posted third-country nationals in the EU state where they are admitted. However, we conclude that more thorough measures are needed.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	89-103
Number of pages	15
Journal	Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research
Volume	31
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1177/10242589251324658
Publication status	Published - Feb 2025
Externally published	Yes

Bibliographical note

Published online: June 23, 2025.

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2025. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).

Keywords

free movement of services
migrant worker
Posting of workers
single permit
social security coordination
third-country national

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10.1177/10242589251324658Licence: CC BY

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abstract = "This article questions the trend of admitting third-country nationals to an EU Member State for the purpose of posting them to another EU Member State. The reality of the workers concerned does not match the assumptions underlying the legal regime for intra-EU posting. As a result, it is easier to exploit their labour and their legal immigration status is jeopardised both during and after the posting. This also makes fictitious their ability to exercise rights that depend on this status, such as access to certain social security benefits. The trend of {\textquoteleft}labour immigration for the purpose of posting{\textquoteright} is fuelled by a complex and opaque interplay of regulatory frameworks and ambiguous judicial interpretation of key legal criteria for posting. Recent case-law might help to mitigate this trend. Also, a revised EU directive has potential to marginally improve the rights of posted third-country nationals in the EU state where they are admitted. However, we conclude that more thorough measures are needed.",

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Strengthening the rights of posted third-country nationals in their EU Member State of residence and employment

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Keywords

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