Labor Law. The Basics (PDF)

Document from the year 2020 in the subject Law - Comparative Legal Systems, Comparative Law, , language: English, abstract: The basic idea for creating the European Union is the Internal Market where free movement of people, capital, services and goods is established. The creation of the Internal Market is the central raison d'etre of the EU existence. The freedom of movement of people is one of the four freedoms of the Internal Market. The right to move is the basic right of the European citizens. The realization of this freedom was harder than practicing the free movement of capital, services and goods. Therefore, the European Union is still taking subsequent actions for realization of the freedom of movement of people. At the beginning, the freedom of movement of people was available just for the working population, but latter on the freedom of movement included all the categories of citizens, students, retired people and people who are not economically active.

Throughout the years European Union makes efforts to change the approach towards the third country nationals, especially the working population as one of the conditions for fulfillment of the Lisbon Strategy goals.

The European Union adopted important primary, secondary law and case law of the European Court of Justice such as the Association Agreements regulating the freedom of movement of third country workers. These Association Agreements with Third Countries provide articles for free movement of third country workers in the European Union and vice versa. For a long time, the Association Agreements are the basic law regulating the freedom of movement of third country workers. The European Court of Justice played important role in interpreting the articles for freedom of movement of workers and giving direct effect in the national laws of the Member States.

In the last two years European Union has adopted secondary law for improving the status of third country workers especially for highly qualified workers. The entrance of highly qualified workers in the Member States is important for realization of the economic growth and development, such as decreasing the unemployment rate.