In March 2021 the Commission announced in the European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan the start of a pilot to explore by 2023 the launching of a digital solution to facilitate the interaction between mobile citizens and national authorities and improve the exercise of social security rights across borders (European Social Security Pass, ESSPASS). ESSPASS should facilitate cross border mobility through the digitalisation of the verification of mobile citizens’ social security coverage and entitlements by the competent institutions and other actors.

A first phase focused on the cross-border digital verification of validity and authenticity of the Portable Document A1. This Portable Document indicates the social security legislation applicable to the holder and is used for example when a person is sent to work temporarily in a Member State other than the one where they are insured. This ensures that double payment of contributions is avoided, since it proves that social contributions are paid in another EU country. The results of the first phase show how ESSPASS could help simplify the lives of mobile citizens and businesses providing services abroad, including small and medium-sized enterprises, by streamlining procedures and reducing administrative burdens.

Following up on this first phase, two consortia of Member State institutions are further piloting the issuing and verification of Portable Document A1 and the European Health Insurance Card, receiving financial support from the Digital Europe Programme. This piloting started mid-2023 for a duration of two years.

The further piloting is carried out by institutions coming from 12 countries (AT, BE, CZ, DK, DE, IE, IT, NL, PL, PT, ES, SE) which are part of the two consortia financed under the Digital Europe Programme.

EESSI is a message exchange system that allows for secure and fast exchange of information between institutions (e.g. to calculate the pension entitlements of someone who worked in several Member States over their career). Only social security institutions have access to the EESSI system. The ESSPASS pilot explores way to complement EESSI by facilitating the interactions between mobile citizens and relevant public authorities and other actors for social security purposes (e.g. labour inspectors or health care providers), making real-time verification of social security coverage and entitlements possible, including by those actors that do not have access to the EESSI system.

On 3 June 2021, the Commission published the proposal for a European Digital Identity (EUDI) framework. The initiative revises the existing cross-border legal framework for trusted digital identities (the European electronic identification and trust services (eIDAS) Regulation). A political agreement was reached by the European Parliament and the Council on 29 June 2023.The Regulation will likely enter into force in the second half of 2023.

With harmonised EU digital identity wallets (as part of the new EUDI framework), citizens will be able to store and share data and digital documents/ credentials for all sorts of services on a voluntary basis (e.g. driving licence, medical prescriptions or education qualifications). The ESSPASS pilot project is exploring the ways to make use of this framework and of the European digital identity wallet.

Any new initiative will need to comply with the EU data protection legislation, in particular the General Data Protection Regulation, and security rules. A possible future ESSPASS solution allowing for the verification of social security entitlements of mobile citizens and workers abroad needs to comply with these rules and also needs to fulfill accessibility requirements and be inclusive of all people – especially those with disabilities, older persons, and those lacking digital skills.

The SDG Regulation introduced the obligation that Member States must make available key administrative procedures fully online as of 12 December 2023. One of these procedures is the request for determination of applicable legislation (whose output is the Portable Document A1) and another example is the request of a European Health Insurance Card.

This means that such requests – and also the response (output) to these requests (the PD A1 and the EHIC – should be available to citizens online.

The ESSPASS pilot complements this by exploring ways in which the verification of authenticity and validity of such (electronic) documents can be done in cross-border situations.

The ESSPASS pilot project is exploring how to simplify social security coordination procedures; it does not have the aim to change the material or personal scope of the coordination rules. The current paper-based exchanges between mobile persons/businesses and administrations, healthcare providers or labour inspectors would be replaced as much as possible by electronic means.