Bulgarian MEP Radan Kanev: Mobile Workers’ Rights Are Underprotected

A key right of European citizens is to work in each Member State, but the right of small businesses to work across borders and offer their services in the EU must be seen as something positive, not as a brain candy for sly political populists trying to present them in a negative light," said Democratic Bulgaria MEP Radan Kanev at an online briefing on the EP resolution on labour mobility in the EU and observance of mobile workers' rights.

He delivered a report on labour mobility in the EU and respect for the rights of mobile workers before the coronavirus crisis, because he saw the opportunity to address one of the main issues - for the European Parliament to emerge from the state of blockade and chronic opposition when it comes to labour mobility,tentatively speaking between East and West.

In his words, there is no guarantee that labour mobility is not at all used politically. Poor living conditions during the pandemic made mobile workers abroad a major victim of the pandemic, especially during the first Covid wave in Western Europe. In guest workers' dorms, morbidity and mortality rates were particularly high, Radan Kanev pointed out.

In his opinion, the report does make labour mobility issues an occasion for a political scandal, rather it is unifying, aimed at reaching a broad political consensus. The big question is whether the EC will be able to implement the recommendations in the report so that for-work migrant could move in the EU trouble-fee and on fair terms.

Taking a question of News.bg whether the rights of Bulgarian mobile workers are respected by foreign employers, Kanev explained that Bulgaria is one of the important exporters of labor force in the EU, but we do not top the rankings. We cannot compare Bulgaria to Romania...