The European Commission is due to unveil its proposal for a Fair Labour Mobility Package this month. Making mobility easier can help ease pressures and fill vacancies, but easier does not necessarily mean fairer.

There seem to be two main goals: first, to make it easier for workers to move so that labour shortages can be eased somewhat, and second, to make it easier to enforce existing regulation. Both are undoubtedly important, and any progress is welcome. Yet the package is also very open. To get it right, we must consider what "fair mobility" in the EU actually means.

The privilege of an opinion piece is that I can answer this for myself. Fair mobility would mean that moving within the EU, for work or for whatever other reason, is as simple and clear as moving within your own country, perhaps to a region with a difficult dialect or odd customs. Crucially, in a fair labour market an EU mover would be paid for their skills and the job they do, not for where they come from. As it stands, we are far from such a situation.

Labour mobility is often put forward as a way to make the European labour market more efficient. In its annual report, EURES, the European network of employment services, points out that some occupations are in surplus in certain European regions while in high demand in others, with mobility meant to correct these imbalances. The problem is that shortages are not only due to a lack of available workers but also to jobs that are simply not attractive. Mobility is then used as a quick band-aid to relieve shortages without having to make jobs more attractive. After mobility comes a push for more migration, as with the EU Talent Pool. To be very clear, I think migration and mobility can be very beneficial and are needed for the economy, but they cannot be an alternative to good-quality jobs.

At the same time, mobility is not costless. It affects workers and their families, and fair mobility should put the worker at the centre. First of all, "mobility" is a good example of EU-bubble speak: for most practical purposes, a mover from one member state to another is a migrant, albeit one who does not need a visa and has the right to work. They still face many of the same hurdles international migrants do: barriers of culture or language, qualifications that are discounted or viewed with suspicion, and a lack of the social networks that help people find good jobs. Like other migrants, EU movers face disadvantage on the labour market. They often work in jobs for which they are overqualified, and under worse conditions.

At the moment, around 10 million people of working age live in a member state other than their own, and recent flows point to around 950,000 moving each year, with a larger number posted for a short time. While this is not negligible, it falls well below comparable figures for a large country, such as interstate mobility in the United States.

Moreover, while flows within the EU have become somewhat more diverse over time, they still run mainly from poorer to wealthier member states and are in fact comparable to flows of economic migrants. Workers move from areas with fewer opportunities to those with better pay, more demand, particularly for short-term and lower-qualified work, and shortages. These patterns also appear to hold, overall, for flows of posted workers. Third, and crucially, these workers are often disadvantaged on the labour market. This is particularly the case for movers from central and eastern Europe, who tend to work in low-quality jobs for which they are often overqualified.

Workers who move for a shorter time, whether by applying for work in another member state or by being posted there, can be in a vulnerable position, highly dependent on their employer. These flows are often under the radar and hardly controlled. As accidents on construction sites have made shockingly clear, there is also often a lack of responsibility when things do go wrong along sometimes rather long subcontracting chains. Trade unions across the EU report that migrants and EU movers are particularly at risk, especially in sectors such as food manufacturing, agriculture, and transport. Many European unions at least provide support and make sure people are aware of their rights, but there is a clear lack of enforcement.

What we highlight in our book is that part of this vulnerability of EU movers, who are making the most of their right to free movement, stems from a lack of visibility and legal clarity. They risk falling between the cracks, particularly those moving for short-term work or working across borders.

The Fair Labour Mobility Package must therefore ensure that workers are protected, have their skills recognised, and can build a life. If I could have any influence on it, I would hope it goes beyond seeing movers within the EU purely as an economic resource. The risk is that movers are seen primarily as a way to deal with labour shortages, still very high in western Europe, and to appease businesses by bringing in vulnerable, low-paid workers rather than attracting workers through quality jobs and good employment.