La institucionalización informal del PUSC

Undeclared work has been signalized as a political priority of the European Union for more than two decades, with a growing impact since the publication of Communication COM(98) 219. Several other official texts have been issued on the subject, revealing its importance in the EU,78 namely the Council Resolution 2003/C260/01 which recommended to Member States articulated preventive and deterrent measures to reduce undeclared work, to which national governments responded through a vast array of strategies aiming at improving detection, preventing and strengthening sanctions.79

Aiming at preventing undeclared work, governments have used measures to enable people to work legitimately, to bring people already participating in the undeclared economy to declare their activities and making use of initiatives to increase the payment of taxes. At the same time, detection measures have been improved fostering the perceived offences to be spotted and deterring potential offenders of committing illicit facts. Exhaustive use of mass media driven by moralization purposes or alerting potential offenders on the risks of being detected and its consequences are a common practice in the EU.

Among the different approaches, penalization is the predominant (see chapter 5). In fact, according to Eurofound (2013), while the preventative,80 curative81 and commitment82 approaches were rising in all countries of the European Economic Area and Switzerland the deterrence approach was still the preferred in 2010, with 93 per cent of countries relying on the use of sanctions.83 On what refers to measures to improve

77 _{In 2012, the Spanish authorities identified more than 23,000 enterprises creating fictitious jobs.} 78

Resolution A5-0220/2000 of the European Parliament of 21 September 2000, published in the Official Journal of the European Union C 146/102, of 17 May 2001, Council Resolution 2003/0260/01, Communication of the Commission to the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Regions Committee COM (2007) 628, of 24 October 2007, and the Council resolution on transforming undeclared work into regular Employment (2003/C 260/01).

79 _{Eurofound 2013, p. 9.}

80 _{Most of the countries were simplifying compliance procedures (87 per cent), making transition}

from unemployment to self-employment easier (65 per cent), giving direct tax incentives (61 per cent), among others.

81 _{Measures to stimulate purchasers to buy declared goods (e.g. service vouchers) or to stimulate}

suppliers to formalize operations, through amnesties, Vat reductions, gradual formalization schemes, etc.

82 _{Most the initiatives consisted of awareness raising campaigns to inform workers and employers of}

risks and costs of undeclared work (61 per cent), to inform users (61 per cent) or workers (57 per cent) of the benefits of declared work. Measures to improve knowledge of labour, social and fiscal laws were being used by 65 per cent of the countries.

83

detection, 83 per cent of countries were sharing data and 74 per cent were using registration of workers prior to starting of work or on the first day of work. Certification of businesses, (65 per cent), mandatory workers identification in the workplace (65 per cent) and coordination of operation between different agencies were also being used (61 per cent). An interesting note provided in the same publication, is that only 45 per cent of the stakeholders from countries where preventative measures were implemented saw them as effective when compared to deterrence, demonstrating a strong prevalence of attitudes supporting the use of repression to tackle undeclared work, rather than enabling measures promoting formalization.

Undeclared work is generally seen as a phenomenon with strong negative results receiving high political attention in most of the countries, as the following examples reveal. In Belgium policy options on the subject are defined by the council of ministers and in 2008 a Deputy Minister for the fight against fraud was created under the Prime Minister’s direct responsibility. In Spain, a national integrated strategy to prevent and correct fiscal, labour and social fraud was adopted in 201084 and later on in April 2012.85 In Italy there is an ad hoc inter-ministerial coordination mechanism to fight undeclared work. Such initiatives paid off, as the countries assessed positive outcomes for the recuperation of millions of Euros. In France, the Prime Minister defined in November 2012 a new plan to combat undeclared work for the period 2013/2015, focusing on repression of all abusive forms of cross-border posting of workers, control of subcontracting, sanctioning of false professional statutes and illegal employment of unauthorized foreign workers. The envisaged programme adopts a massive coverage by the government and social partners, improves controls through the professionalization of services and coordination by the anti-fraud departmental operational committees (CODAF).86 In Norway, a Joint Alliance against the Black Economy was also established in 2008.

In most times governments see undeclared work within the more comprehensive domain of welfare and tax fraud, appointing as leading agencies either the labour inspectorates or the social and tax inspection services. The approach of each country to the problem depends to a large extent on national legal and public administration systems and political options and is basically focused either on deterrence or on enabling compliance. The financial crisis, however, is leading some European countries to prioritize the recovery of revenues and budget control, attributing bigger importance to tax investigation than to protection of workers’ rights. In Ireland, for instance, the revenues and the department of social protection are the leading agencies. In others, such as France, all institutions dealing with “illegal” labour have an equilibrated weight, and some like Spain, attribute a bigger role to labour inspectorates. Regardless of the precise weight of labour inspectorates in each system, labour inspection is considered fundamental and it heavily contributes to the sustainability of European social models. In Italy, as an example, the action of public agencies dealing with labour inspection (Ministry of Labour and Social Policies, INPS and INAIL) resulted in recuperation of 1,631,703,292 EUR for social security in 2012.87

84 _{www.empleo.gob.es/itss/web/Atencion_al.../Plan_int_fraude.pdf.} 85 _{Knowledge Bank of Good Practices of Eurofound, available at:}

http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/areas/labourmarket/tackling/search.php.

86 _{http://www.gouvernement.fr/sites/default/files/fichiers_joints/plan_national_de_lutte_contre_le-}

_travail_illegal.pdf.

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3.

Tackling undeclared work through the