Call for good practices 2025

1. Overview

1.1. ELA good practice collection and dissemination

The ELA is proud to announce the launch of the 4^th edition of the call for good practices as part of the initiative to collect practices in various areas under ELA’s mandate. This initiative aims to foster the exchange, dissemination, and adoption of effective approaches and knowledge among Member States.

The call for good practices focuses on topics related to EU labour mobility and social security coordination, establishing specific annual priorities reflecting ELA’s sectoral or cross-sectoral focal points, and addressing issues like labour market imbalances, sector-specific challenges, and recurring enforcement issues. Relevant areas include posting, road transport, seasonal work, construction, care, social security coordination, new forms of employment, digitalisation, provision of information and other issues in the scope of EU labour mobility.

In addition, from 2025 onwards the topic of tackling undeclared work will be included in the call for good practices. The aim is to identify inspiring practices and effective measures applied in cross-border or national dimension.

The good practices collected will be listed in the ELA good practice database which will be made available on ELA’s website in 2025, while the selected exemplary practices will have the opportunity to be presented and receive a certificate of recognition during an ELA event.

1.2. What is a good practice?

For the purposes of this call, a ‘good practice’ is considered to be a policy or operational measure (for example tools, campaigns, procedures etc.) targeting a clearly identified group, which has a clear objective, is highly visible and accessible for the target group, is backed by sustainable funding, and produces the intended results or at least better results than existing alternatives by using delivery mechanisms tailored to the intended target group and objectives. The measure can be a stand-alone instrument, or a set of measures, but should in any case be embedded into the wider policy framework.

Other elements of good practices may, inter alia, include the following principles:

• Inclusivity
• Involves a set of different stakeholders
• Replicability
• Be evidence based.

2. Priorities for 2025

The call for good practices 2025 has the following priorities:

Information provision on registration and payment of social contributions

Providing comprehensive, high-quality, and easily accessible information for individuals and employers, in particular small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), about their rights and obligations in the areas of labour mobility and social security coordination is essential to enable them to benefit from the full potential of the internal market.

ELA seeks to identify and promote information resources, in particular websites and other online tools, that clearly outline the obligations and procedures related to registration and the payment of social security contributions. These sources should target employers or self-employed individuals that are engaged in transnational or cross-border labour mobility within the European Union and need to navigate and comply with unfamiliar administrative rules and procedures. The information provided should help the target groups determine which Member State’s social security legislation applies to them and inform them about their related obligations regarding registering for and paying social security contributions in accordance with the rules and procedures under the applicable legislation.

The collection of good practices in this area will focus on the Member States’ provision of information related to registering as an employer/self-employed person, registering employees, determining the amount and types of contribution, and payment of social security contributions, online/paper-based procedures, as well as identification of the competent institutions, in the EU labour mobility context.

Social partners and other stakeholders are also invited to submit their initiatives in information provision.

Particular attention is devoted to practices that take special account of the end user’s perspective and the users’ assessment (i.e., via testimonies or satisfaction surveys) of the proposed information provision model.

National practices (legal and administrative) to detect and prevent bogus self-employment

Bogus self-employment, also known as false or dependent self-employment, is a type of social dumping which can be found in the labour market. It typically concerns a situation where individuals are falsely declared or classified as self-employed to avoid legal obligations associated with employment; often used to evade tax and social insurance liabilities or to circumvent employers' responsibilities.

Bogus self-employment is prevalent across various sectors, particularly in construction, transport, services, and the platform economy. This practice is motivated by the desire to reduce labour costs, avoid social security contributions, and increase flexibility in hiring practices. Trends indicate a rise in such practices, especially with the growth of platform work and the collaborative economy [1]. Addressing bogus self-employment is crucial for ensuring fair working conditions and protecting workers' rights. By implementing effective practices, Member States can address this issue and promote a more equitable labour market.

Through this call, ELA is seeking to identify measures and practices adopted at the national level to promote the effective detection and prevention of bogus self-employment, such as:

• Legal reforms: Implementing clear legal definitions and criteria for distinguishing between genuine self-employment and bogus self-employment; Imposing sanctions or penalties on employers who engage in bogus self-employment to prevent such practices;
• Administrative measures and national policies and strategies adopted at national level, to be implemented by national authorities with the aim to detect and prevent bogus self-employment;
• Inter-agency and inter-institutional cooperation: Enhancing collaboration between labour inspectorates, social security institutions, public employment services and tax authorities to share information and coordinate actions;
• Awareness campaigns: Educating employers and workers about the legal implications and risks associated with bogus self-employment;
• Support for workers: Providing support and resources for workers to understand their rights and report cases of bogus self-employment.

Labour and skills shortages in the health and care sector 

The health and care sector comprises of three main subsectors or activities: human health, residential care and social work without accommodation. It consistently ranks high in terms of worker shortages. According to the 2024 EURES Report on labour shortages and surpluses (forthcoming), 21 EU and EFTA countries report a shortage of specialist doctors and nurses, while 17 countries report a shortage of general practitioners and healthcare assistants. 

Providers of initiatives aiming to tackle labour and skills shortages in the health and care sector are invited to submit their approaches. This call is open to relevant initiatives for example aimed to attract labour (such as by enhancing the attractiveness of a sector, occupation or region; through an active intra-EU migration policy (initiatives to attract workers from third countries are excluded from this call); or by improving recruitment strategies of companies), or to provide access to the sector/occupation through training, awareness raising or information provision, improved matching between jobseekers and employers, or initiatives to improve working and employment conditions in the sector.

Providers or administrators of such initiatives can be national, regional or local governments or their administrative bodies (including social security institutions and public employment services), social partners (individually or jointly), EURES Members and Partners, sectoral or civil society actors. 

Undeclared work

Over the last years, the European Platform tackling undeclared work identified over a hundred of inspiring and relevant practices. From this year onwards, the collection of good practices in the area of tackling undeclared work is integrated in the single ELA call. There is no limitation to a specific area / type of good practice aimed at tackling undeclared work and a wide range of aspects is acceptable. In this regard, topics of the good practices related to undeclared work can vary and highlight examples of deterrence or preventative measures and policy initiatives, at the national or cross border level, including those that try to influence behavioural change towards compliance to declared work. Good practices can range from wider/horizontal to sector-specific approaches or innovative/digital tools used for reducing undeclared work and seeking to transform undeclared work into declared work.

Apart from the above-stated priorities, you can submit your good practices on other topics related to EU labour mobility, for instance on topics covered by previous ELA calls for good practices.

3 How to participate

3.1. Who can apply?

The ongoing call for good practices is open to Member State administrations, but also to other stakeholders operating at the national, regional or local level, including social security institutions, civil society and social partner organisations. This includes EU Member States and other countries in the EURES network.

3.2. How to submit a good practice?

You can submit your application containing a good practice example by following these steps and guidelines: 

• Fill in the short application form available here: APPLICATION FORM (in English); 
• Applicants may submit more than one proposal (by filling out the short application form for each good practice proposal) 
• In case more details are required on the submitted good practice, you will be contacted using the contact information provided in the application form.

Should you have any questions, please contact: capacityela [dot] europa [dot] eu (capacity[at]ela[dot]europa[dot]eu)

3.3. What is the deadline for submitting good practices?

The call for good practices is a recurring one and good practice examples may be submitted annually, but with a specified deadline for submitting good practices in accordance with priorities set up for specific year. 

The deadline for submitting applications for the call for good practices 2025 is on 19 May 2025.

3.4. What are the benefits of participation?

The benefits of participation are:

• the European recognition of performance and achievements;
• an opportunity to present the good practice during an ELA event;
• visibility of practices on the ELA website;
• facilitate the exchange of good practices and their potential uptake among Member States;
• contribute to the effective application and enforcement of EU labour mobility law, and social security coordination within the EU.

4. Selection of exemplary practices

Among the good practices received, ELA will select several exemplary practices. Exemplary practices will be selected against the following criteria by the ELA Evaluation group:

• Achievements and outcomes
  Results and outcomes of the good practice. Alignment of good practice with the priorities of the call (if not applicable, alignment with the field of EU labour mobility).
• Cost effectiveness
  The degree to which the practice was successful in reaching objectives and producing clear and measurable outcomes at the lowest possible cost.
• Transferability
  How the experience from this practice could be transferred to other contexts i.e. what would another Member State/group/sector need to have or put in place for this measure to be successful in their country/group/sector.
• Sustainability
  How the practice is sustainable from a social, financial or environmental perspective.
• Innovativeness
  Innovative features of the good practice.
• Digitalisation
  Design, development and/or utilisation of digital tools, policies or plans for digitalisation, business processes and data digitalisation, data sharing digital initiatives, the use of digitalisation to facilitate the access to data in real time and detection of fraud and error, etc.

5. Personal data protection

Any personal data included in or relating to this call, including its publication shall be processed by the European Labour Authority pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2018 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data by the Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies and on the free movement of such data. 

It shall be processed solely for the purposes of the performance, management and monitoring of this call by the European Labour Authority without prejudice to possible transmission to the bodies charged with a monitoring or inspection task in conformity with Union law. 

The data subject shall have the right of access to her/his personal data and the right to rectify any such data. Should the data subject have any queries concerning the processing of her/his personal data, the data subject shall address them to the Unit organising this call (Cooperation Support Unit, Capacity Building Sector). The data subject shall have right of recourse at any time to the European Data Protection Supervisor.

ELA Data Protection Officer (DPO) publishes the register of all processing operations on personal data by ELA, which have been documented and notified to her. You may access the register via the following link: https://www.ela.europa.eu/en/privacy-policy

This specific processing operation has been included in the DPO’s public register with the following Record reference: DPR-ELA-2022-0041 Call for Good Practices Privacy statement.

[1] Source: European Labour Authority, Approaches to preventing, detecting and tackling bogus self-employment, Report from the peer learning dialogues, September 2024.