ITEM publishes Cross-border Impact Assessment for 2018

Dossiers
The ITEM Cross-border Impact Assessment 2018 contains six dossiers concerning a wide variety of cross-border issues that deal with effects on border regions and/or cross-border mobility. For example, the Baukindergeld dossier examines the border effects of the proposed German measure to promote the residential property of young families. This proposed measure appears to be contrary to EU law as it puts frontier workers who work in Germany but live outside Germany at a disadvantage. On this point, ITEM recommends that a coherent analysis of the impact of the new legislation on cross-border workers be included in the parliamentary debate on new legislation.  In the Social Security dossier, the social security position of non-standard workers (e.g. platform workers working for Uber, Deliveroo etc.) in a cross-border working relationship is examined. One can no longer ignore the increase of new forms of employment and employment contracts such as on-call work, part-time work, irregular work, etc. However, the current European rules still assume a physical presence at a workplace. ITEM recommends that both the current national legislation and the European regulations should be tightened or amended.

The results of the Cross-border Impact Assessment can be found here.

Third edition
ITEM's Cross-border Impact Assessment is aimed at policy makers at the regional, national and European level who take decisions regarding border regions. The report thus has the potential to contribute to the political debate by helping to recognise existing or future border effects. The ITEM Cross-border Impact Assessment has formed the basis of follow-up activities, both in recent years as well as this year. For example, the Dossier on the increase in the low VAT rate was offered to a large number of stakeholders at provincial, Euregional and Ministerial level. The dossier examined the possible economic border effects of the planned VAT increase.

Since its establishment in 2015, ITEM has published three Cross-border Impact Assessments. The ITEM Cross-border Impact Assessment 2018 is the most recent impact assessment carried out by ITEM. The ITEM Cross-border Impact Assessment brings policy and practice together. Every year, ITEM stakeholders have the opportunity to propose restrictive cross-border issues. The subjects of the Cross-border Impact Assessment of that year are then submitted to the selection process of the ITEM Cross-border Impact Assessment Working Group. After completion of the selection process, the selected topics are examined in detail by ITEM researchers.

Cross-border Impact Assessment 2019
While the results of the 2018 reporting have already been published, the first steps for the 2019 assessment are already being prepared. By the end of 2018, ITEM Stakeholders will again have the opportunity to raise with ITEM the issues that are important to them. The ITEM Cross-border Impact Assessment Survey will be made available on the ITEM website in December.