Four months before the presidential elections, Nicolas Sarkozy's government has taken the offensive in a bid to show its determination in defending jobs in France.

The project for a social VAT had been proposed years ago but been buried shortly after Sarkozy's electoral victory in May 2007. The idea is now back on the agenda and a formal proposal will be presented to the French parliament in February, Prime Minister François Fillon said today (5 January).

A tax against outsourcing?

Rome decided to fully liberalise its labour market for citizens of the EU's two newest members as of 1 January, an official at the Romanian Embassy in Italy told EurActiv. The Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs officially informed Romanian and Bulgarian diplomats about its decision on 29 December.

Despite earlier indications to the contrary, one of the first decisions of the newly appointed Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo has been to extend until the end of 2013 the restrictions on Bulgarian and Romanian workers in Belgium.

Picture

Yannis Vardakastanis Interview

Yannis Vardakastanis Interview

Wed, 2011-12-14 13:28

• socialeurope

Yannis Vardakastanis is the president of the European Disability Forum.

He spoke to Euractiv Managing Editor Daniela Vincenti.

President Barroso hosted recently the first meeting of a series of State of the Union event on disabilities. Is this kind of event going really to advance the cause of 80 million citizens with disabilities or is it just lip service?

The rules – already agreed by member states’ governments – offer foreign workers the right to similar working conditions, pensions, social security and access to public services as EU citizens.

First proposed by the Commission in 2007, migrant workers will have a single application procedure for residency and work permits once member states transpose the single permit directive into national law, which they are required to do within two years.

One-stop shop for foreign workers

"Trois années se sont écoulées depuis la faillite de Lehman Brothers. Trois années de crise financière, trois années de crise économique mais aussi, il faut bien le reconnaître, trois années de crise sociale dont de nombreux Européens souffrent au quotidien.