EESSI The Electronic Exchange of Social Security Information (EESI) is an ICT system enabling the exchange of information between the countries of the European Union Community. It allows various types of data and documents relating to social security to be processed and shared in a secure and convenient way. This therefore concerns insured persons, pensioners and employees who have worked or are working abroad in EU countries. This new solution will therefore mainly benefit people who can claim part of their pension from another country.
Until now, the formalities involved, for example, were done in the traditional form - by correspondence, on paper. This will now be replaced by a modern IT system, which has been built up over the years by all European Union Member States. In today's article I will discuss the most important issues related to the system EESSI. I will also point out the benefits of this newly introduced solution.
I invite you to read on.
EESSI
Implementation of the system EESSI deserves approval if only because it will increase the efficiency and speed up the time of handling cases of insured persons who have worked in different countries of the European Economic Area (i.e. EU + EFTA) under the free movement of persons. As I have pointed out before, until now the process of establishing, for example, the right to a pension from a country other than Poland required the authorities to painstakingly transfer documentation to each other by post, which then had to be translated. For this reason, proceedings even lasted several months. This was particularly the case in cases where the rightfulness of the payment of a pension to a person who had worked in several countries had to be examined.
Example
Mr Slawek has worked abroad most of his life. Most of the time he earned money in Germany and the Netherlands, but it also happened that he emigrated to Ireland for a while. When he reached the age of 70, he decided to retire. As it was in Poland that he decided to live in his old age, he applied for his pension here. As, according to EU law, he is entitled to a pension from each of the countries in which he has worked (after fulfilling the relevant conditions for each of them) - he can apply for a total of four pensions.
What should Mr Slawek do then?
All he or she has to do is apply to the Social Security with the appropriate application. The entire pension determination procedure will then be initiated. His case will be handled not only by ZUS, but also by the foreign institutions of Germany, the Netherlands and Ireland, where he worked. The institutions will exchange electronically the information and documents necessary to grant the right and calculate the pensions.
Possibility to easily obtain benefits from EU and EFTA countries
The general rule is that an individual can only be subject to one regime in one country. Accordingly, the electronic exchange of information under the EESSI includes, inter alia, the data necessary to determine membership of a social security scheme.
A single ICT system will facilitate cooperation between many foreign and national institutions (in Poland, this is ZUS), enabling a rapid flow of information and documents. This will therefore result in a faster verification of whether someone is entitled, for example, to a pension benefit from a given country and in what amount. In addition EESSIwill also contribute to the award and payment of other international benefits. In addition to pensions, these include pensions, allowances and compensation. The system will also help foreign institutions to claim unpaid contributions and overpaid benefits in other EU countries.
Attention!
However, ZUS points out that the system EESSI "does not cover (...) the cases of insured persons or benefit claimants who have worked and lived in one country all their lives."
Communication between institutions
It is worth noting that the system EESSI is for communication between institutions. As a result, it does not apply to direct communication between, for example, an insured person and a foreign insurer. On domestic grounds, the Electronic Services Platform of the Social Insurance Institution - PUE ZUS - is used for contact.
EESSI - executive summary
For the last few years, ZUS has been intensively preparing for the launch of this system. The entire ZUS IT system had to be modified for communication with the EESSI. It was certainly a technically very complicated process. Nevertheless, it has already been fully implemented on 1 July 2019, as one of the first in the countries covered.
