Mr. Ivailo Kalfin:

No. This is a general discussion. Incidentally, on mobility, we presented a joint briefing together with a specialised agency, a European labour agency, that is looking at mobility in Europe. It would like to have its mandate extended to include external mobility, that is, the labour migration which comes to Europe. The agency specialises in this area and we worked with it on this particular issue. We worked before with the Hungarian Presidency on disability and the policy for people with disability and integration into the labour market. I mentioned before the Polish focus on the ageing population. These are different topics that the Presidency considers important to it. Whatever it is within our area, we are happy to provide the data, comparisons and material in order to feed the discussion which happens at ministerial level.

In terms of remote working cross-border, this is a very good Irish case. Ireland is very much ahead of the other countries in terms of remote working. Remote working is, in our job-quality matrix, becoming more and more important, especially for younger workers. Salary and wages are important up to a certain point where basically one can pay one's bills and have a normal life. Then we ask the different age groups what is important for work. Young people are very much focused on income and salary. However, the more one advances in one's career, the more we see people asking for a better work-life balance. Remote work is key for work-life balance, along with flexibility in working times and possibilities to get training and not work nine to five in the office. We have a lot of comparative data from different countries, which highlights how important remote working is for the workers. By the way, one of the reasons certain sectors, such as the transport sector or the construction sector, suffer labour shortages is that it is very difficult for them to have remote working. One has to be on-site there but there are other solutions that could be applied.