Keywords
Summary

Keywords

Freedom to provide services – Restrictions – Requirement of individual work permits or a collective work permit and obligation to provide a bank guarantee for service providers established in another Member State deploying workers who are nationals of non-member countries – Not permissible – Justification – Social protection of workers – Stability of the labour market – Disproportionate and inappropriate nature of the requirements at issue

(Art. 49 EC)

Summary

A Member State which imposes on service providers established in another Member State wishing to deploy in its territory workers who are nationals of non-member countries a requirement of individual work permits, the issuance of which is subject to considerations relating to the employment market, or a requirement of a collective work permit, which is granted only in exceptional cases and only when the workers concerned have, for at least six months prior to the deployment, been in a relationship with their undertaking of origin through a contract of employment of indefinite duration, and which requires those service providers to provide a bank guarantee, fails to fulfil its obligations under Article 49 EC.

Reasons of social welfare or stability in the labour market cannot justify such conditions being imposed on the freedom to provide services, as those requirements are not appropriate means for pursuing those objectives. An obligation imposed on a service-providing undertaking to report beforehand to the local authorities on the presence of one or more deployed workers, the anticipated duration of their presence and the provisions of services justifying the deployment, and to provide information showing that the situation of the workers concerned is lawful as regards matters such as residence, work permit and social coverage in the Member State in which that undertaking employs them would give those authorities, in a less restrictive but just as effective a manner as the requirements at issue, a guarantee that the national social welfare legislation is being complied with during the deployment and, in addition, that the situation of those workers is lawful and that they are carrying on their main activity in the Member State in which the service‑providing undertaking is established.

(see paras 27, 31, 36, 46, 48-50, operative part)