The EU wants to change the rules for social benefits for mobile workers and cross-border commuters. Luxembourg will then no longer just have to pay unemployment benefits for three months for commuters from abroad who lose their jobs in Luxembourg, but for six months. This will be expensive: the additional costs could amount to up to 200 million euros per year, said Labor Minister Marc Spautz (CSV) on Thursday to 100.7.
This does not cover all costs. “Of course it also means that we have to set up the labor administration differently,” said Spautz. That will cost another 10 to 20 million euros.
The EU ambassadors from the member states voted on the new rules on Wednesday. The EU Parliament now has to approve the project. It should happen in July. As soon as the MPs there have given the green light, Spautz wants to think about bilateral talks with Luxembourg’s neighboring countries: “We have to manage to set up a data exchange with our Belgian, German and French colleagues so that we can be sure that these people who work here are not counted twice and that everything can be recorded electronically.” Afterwards we can talk about what the controls should look like.
Seven-year transition period
No other EU country employs as many cross-border commuters as the Grand Duchy. Almost 43 percent of employees cross the border every day. That is why Luxembourg receives a special regulation: a transition period of a maximum of seven years. “We will need them too,” Spautz told the company a week ago daily newspaper.
