Legal regulation of labour at the EU level arose as an "annexe" to the legal regulation of economic relations, supporting the existence of a single market, so the legal regulation of labour in the EU is fragmented and affects primarily those social relations, which are directly affected by the establishment of rules for the functioning of the single market. Accordingly, at the EU level, no general labour law norms have ever been adopted that would have the quality of a framework on which much of the framework labour regulation at the supranational level would be based.
Such shortcomings are inherent, perhaps, in any institution of EU labour law that can only be singled out at the appropriate level. For this study, we will only touch upon the conceptual apparatus, using the concept of "employee" as an example.
If we leave the definition of "employee" to the discretion of member states, national legislators can easily deprive all European guarantees and protections for migrant workers. However, now at the EU level, there is still no clear definition of who an employee is and the very concept of an employment contract (as an agreement, a legal fact, a written document) and an employment legal relationship.
The EU Court of Justice first defined an employee in the Lawrie-Blum decision [1], stating that an employee is a person who performs work for a certain period:
1) under the control of another person;
2) for which he/she receives remuneration;
3) included in "effective and authentic" activities.
The EU directives on employee status can be divided into four groups, depending on the definition of employee status:
1. Directive 2001/23 on the transition of obligations; Directive 2008/104 on work obtained through temporary employment agencies. In these directives, an employee means any person who, according to the labour law of the member state concerned, is an employee, and the directive "shall not conflict with national law as regards the definition of an employment contract or an employment relationship". The reference to national law nevertheless contains a safeguard clause that the effect of the directives should not be limited at the national level with regard to atypical forms of employment (employees under fixed-term employment contracts, employees sent by employment agencies, part-time employees).