Free movement (of workers) is one of the fundamental principles of the EU law. For the principle to be effective in everyday life, the coordination of national social security systems is needed in order to prevent the loss, reduction or suspension of social security benefits for mobile EU citizens. This also applies to special rules concerning the coordination of unemployment benefits, which may be considered as one of the most conflictive coordination rules, where any political agreement concerning their amendment is hard to achieve. They are also characterised by their special nature, which demands active search of employment from the unemployed. Due to their special nature, they deviate from the basic coordination principles.
Due to changed practical challenges of such regulation, the European Commission came up with a proposal for new regulation already in 2016, yet the discussion on its contents is still ongoing. The applicable legislation is in some parts unclear, it allows for different interpretations by different Member States, it commonly poses a disproportionate financial burden on the competent Member State, while some rules do not treat cross-border workers equally and trigger serious doubts concerning legal certainty and predictability.
Coordination rules of unemployment benefits consist of five basic rules: rules on the determination of the competent Member State, reimbursement rules, rules on the aggregation of periods, rules on the calculation of benefits, and rules on the export of benefits. Beside a short presentation of basic coordination features, the thesis discusses every of the five above listed elements concerning the coordination of unemployment benefits in detail, describing the applicable legislation, its flaws and proposals for future regulation.
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