The ten most serious border obstacles

Border obstacles are not only things that make it difficult for Nordic citizens to settle down and work in a different Nordic country from their own. They are also problems which arise when you move back home, when you fall ill or when you need to draw your pension. NLJ and the Freedom of Movement…

Text: Björn Lindahl
3 minutes

The Freedom of Movement Forum have a
list of 39 different border obstacles which they aim to get rid off.
Some are problems which affect tens of thousands of Nordic citizens,
others might affect just a few. We have drawn up a list of the ten most
serious border obstacles based on the number of people they affect and
how serious the consequences are for the individual:

  1. People who have worked for several years in one country and take
    early retirement from a different country receive a lower pension if
    they do not meet the demands for early retirement in both countries.
    Their pay-out can be considerably reduced as a result.
  2. People on partial sick leave in one country cannot take up
    part-time work in a different country without loosing their sickness
    benefit. Accepting any work in a different country involves changing
    the social insurance host country, which again has consequences for the
    sick leave.
  3. People living in border areas are not allowed to approach the
    labour market on the other side of the border when they seek labour
    market training.
  4. Someone hired in one country risks not receiving any unemployment
    benefit if they fail to register with that country’s unemployment
    benefit fund from day one. In Sweden you need a whole year’s
    uninterrupted membership in order to claim unemployment benefit. The
    Freedom of Movement Forum says it would be more reasonable to demand at
    least eight weeks’ membership.
  5. People living in Sweden and working for a staffing agency/temp
    agency do not receive money from their unemployment benefit fund in
    between jobs.
  6. Border commuters who become unemployed during a period of sickness
    leave risk loosing all of their benefit when declared partially fit for
    work, because the two countries can’t agree on who is responsible for
    paying the benefit.
  7. Swedes who live in Sweden and work in Norway and receive Norwegian
    rehabilitation benefits as a result of being injured or otherwise ill,
    will run into trouble when trying to document this fact in Sweden. This
    is because Norwegian authorities refuse to fill in the necessary
    Swedish unemployment benefit form (the E301). This will have
    consequences for the size of a person’s benefit if he or she become
    unemployed.
  8. A person living in Sweden and working in Denmark who get injured or
    for other reasons remains incapable of working for a long period of
    time must, after medical treatment, travel daily to Denmark to attend a
    rehabilitation programme. It would be easier if this could happen in
    the country of residence.
  9. Men who work in Norway with a wife/partner who neither lives nor
    works in Norway has no right to paternity leave around births or
    parental leave to look after children. The right is derived from
    the rights of the mother.
  10. People on parental leave cannot break it off to take up work in a
    different Nordic country. The consequence would be a reduction of the
    parental benefit to the basic level when that work ends, i.e. the right
    to parental benefit in the former country of work ends and is replaced
    by basic level parental benefit in the country of residence. 
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