Europe’s ever expanding mobility patterns – posting, third-country nationals and the single European labour market

This article shows that the single European labour market has come to consist of various streams of mobility, out of which long-term mobility is just one modest stream. Long-term mobility based on the free movement of workers is increasingly complemented by highly circular and more temporary mobility streams of posted workers based on the free movement of services. Another rapidly growing mobility stream consists of third-country nationals (TCNs) who are mobile within Europe as posted workers. This stream is based on case-law of the European Court of Justice, that allows TCNs with a valid work and residence permit in one Member State, to be posted freely across the EU. This article is a call to re-assess EU labour mobility as the diverse phenomenon it has become, encompassing not only mobility streams that were initially or historically part of the labour mobility vision of EU policy makers, but also labour streams that are (even) more short term and circular. One main conclusion is that a true single European labour market should be much more integrated administratively