The project, which started in January 2018 and lasts for 2 years, is implemented with the financial support from the European Union (Grant Agreement No. VS/2017/0349). EEPOW deals with the analysis and action on the best possible conditions to welcome the EU directive on posting within the different national systems of the countries involved in the project. One major characteristic of labour migration within the European Union (EU) is mobility from lower-income countries, often from Southern and Eastern Europe, towards higher-income Member states (MS) in the West and the North of Europe. Therefore, transitional periods for full access to the freedom of movement of workers in the internal European market have been applied for the latest accession countries. As a result, the posting of workers regulated by the Directive on the Posting of Workers (96/71/EC) has been one of the main channels for employment of workers from these countries to the rest of the EU until the lifting of the ban. The migratory trend is expected to continue once the candidate countries from the Western Balkans become full members, in particular when considering their recent history of migration towards EU member states since the fall of the previous political regimes.
The EEPOW Project aims to proactively address the issue of posting of workers at its pre-accession stage by assisting Eastern European countries, especially the four candidate countries Albania, FYROM, Montenegro, and Serbia, in implementing the Directive already before it gets into force, and by assisting in the prevention of social dumping, i.e. the use of cheap labour, to minimize associated risks for workers.
