In this working paper we investigate how the Posting of Workers Directive interplays with
and is influenced by other EU and national rules and regulations on labour law, migration law,
social security, health insurance, temporary agency work, and company law and how this
might lead to potential inequalities, unfair competition, and exploitation of posted workers,
and identify gaps between national policy and implementation practice. We do that through
the insights collected from 92 interviews with employers, public authorities, social partners,
and non-governmental organisations. The research takes a comparative cross-national
approach that includes six EU Member States (Austria, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Slovakia,
Slovenia) and two candidate countries (Serbia and North Macedonia). Our findings indicate
that while posting regulation is designed at the EU level, the understandings of what the rules
mean and how they are embedded in national legal frameworks vary. This has resulted in
significant differences in the transposed national regulatory frameworks for posting and the
other related rules we analysed. Some of these differences have led to ambiguities and
enactment challenges in terms of interpretation of rules, their implementation and
enforcement, as well as the validation of national enforcement and protection mechanisms and
strategies. The differences in the legal frameworks across countries are faced by enforcing
public authorities and employers. Our research indicates that while there are different
categories of employers based on whether they abide by the posting rules or break them, the
latter category is not a clear-cut category of law offenders but is comprised of abusive
companies as well as those entangled in the complex transnational regulatory framework and
the regulatory differences across countries. The complexity of the regulatory framework,
enforcement structures and protection mechanisms are also transferred to workers, which
combined with personal factors results in underreporting, lack of detection, and hence
insufficient preventative or reparatory interventions on the side of the authorities and the
social partners. Measures could be taken to simplify and converge rules and procedures on
posting and other related areas, increase the capacities of enforcement agencies and social
partners in monitoring and providing support to posting companies and posted workers,
reduce social dumping practices, as well as strengthen collaboration across institutions and
borders.
