The European Commission on Tuesday, 15 September 2026, presented a sweeping labour-mobility package that it says will cut red tape for companies that recruit staff across internal EU borders. The centre-piece is the new “Skills Portability Act”, which will oblige all 27 member states to digitise citizens’ diplomas and professional licences in a single EU-wide database and introduce an automated tool that compares qualifications between countries. For the thousands of multinational companies headquartered in Brussels and Antwerp, the change is significant. Belgian HR managers currently spend weeks translating certificates before a cross-border secondee from, say, Germany or France can start work. Under the proposal, qualifications already verified in one member state will be recognised automatically in another, reducing processing times that critics say routinely top three months. The Act also promises faster recognition of some third-country qualifications – a long-standing pain-point for Belgian tech scale-ups that hire talent from India and the United States. While EU officials concede that full third-country alignment is “a marathon, not a sprint”, they vow that a common set of rules will be in place by 2027. Trade unions argue the package focuses too heavily on the needs of recruiters. The European Trade Union Confederation warns that easier recruitment must be matched with tougher enforcement of minimum-wage and welfare standards—especially in Belgium’s logistics hubs, which rely heavily on posted workers from Eastern Europe. If approved by the European Parliament, the Skills Portability Act could take effect in late-2027. Belgian employers should begin mapping which staff profiles require foreign credential checks and budget for the IT integrations that the new digital platform will demand.
Source: EUobserver
