The Internal Coordination of Professional Social Security Systems within the EU: A Comparative Analysis

  Social security systems are classified, on the grounds of their personal scope of application, into two fundamental categories: universal and professional systems. Professional systems – currently apparent in many EU countries – protect persons on the basis of their individual professional activities and hence take into account the different professional groups (e.g., employees, self-employed, civil servants, etc.), often by operating distinct systems or schemes per group. In these systems, inter-professional mobility can have significant consequences from a social security perspective, since it can lead to different social security systems being applicable in a successive or cumulative manner. In such instances, the issue of internal coordination of the involved professional social security systems is raised. This is why, in anticipation of further inter-professional mobility, the EU has constantly urged Member States to implement measures that facilitate these transitions.  Although there is a considerable body of literature on international and intra-European coordination, the same cannot be told with regard to the internal coordination of professional social security systems. The aim of this research is to explore how countries with professional systems coordinate their systems in view of increased inter-professional mobility. By employing the method of comparative legal analysis, focusing on specific EU countries (Belgium, France, Greece and Luxembourg), this project intends to illustrate the differences between their respective professional systems, which cause coordination problems, to identify existing internal coordination solutions, to scrutinize the potential impact of EU coordination law on national regimes and, ultimately, to explore optimal solutions vis-a-vis the challenge of inter-professional mobility.