Labour mobility has existed for more than fifty years within the European Union, but in recent months has become the subject of much controversy, as I am sure you have noticed.
In various EU countries, we have seen increasing unease, animosity, and sometimes hostility towards migrant EU workers, in particular as regards the rights of citizens from other EU Member States to various forms of social benefits in host countries.
New pressures have been added of recent with the outcome of the referendum in Switzerland, where the population voted narrowly to restrict the entry of non-Swiss nationals into Switzerland.
The truth is that the vast majority of people who move from one EU country to another do so in order to work.
They don’t do it in order to claim benefits. These workers are in fact of considerable benefit to the economies, and to the welfare systems, of the receiving countries.
There is a consensus among experts on the advantages of EU labour mobility.
But there are also concerns where for example specific sectors or geographical areas face concentration of the costs or disadvantages of mobility.
For example, if a large number of young doctors leave a country within a short period, labour mobility will be seen as a problem.
Where there is tension and where the costs and disadvantages are concentrated, a solution has to be found.
EU cooperation helps in finding the solutions and in ensuring that the result of labour mobility in Europe can improve.
The EU Single Market’s four freedoms
The first point is that free movement for workers within the EU does not stand alone. Labour mobility is just one of the four freedoms on which the EU’s Single Market is based, along with free movement of goods, capital and services.
Those fundamental principles were enshrined in the Treaties from the beginning and have been ratified by the parliaments of all EU countries on numerous occasions.
Member States cannot cherry pick which of the freedoms they want and leave the rest because the EU is based on a balance of mutual interests.
That is why the EU has been so successful, and so mutually beneficial to all Member States.
The EU’s rules on free movement of workers entitle EU citizens to move to another Member State and work there on the same terms as nationals, without any restriction or discrimination.
Read the whole speech that Lázló Andor made at the Conference on Labour Mobility and Transnationalism in the Nordic-Baltic Region in allinn, 7 March 2014