On Friday 23 October, the Member States were asked by the German Presidency in the EU Council Working Party on Integration, Migration and Expulsion how labour migration from third countries could be developed in the EU.
While the Commission has announced in its ‘Pact on Migration and Asylum’ initiatives in 2021 on the reception of ‘talent’ from third countries, the Presidency wants to know what is the propensity of the Member States in this area.
The European Parliament has also prepared a report, so far led by Maltese Socialist Miriam Dalli (who has since joined the Maltese Parliament, says the S&D group).
In its preparatory note, the Presidency recalls that, during a last discussion on the subject in May 2019, Member States had indicated that they considered that there was little or no need to propose new legislation in other areas of legal migration (the EU has texts on seasonal workers, on highly qualified migrants such as the Blue Card Directive, whose revision has still not been completed, the text on the single work and residence permit, etc.) and that it was rather necessary to better implement “the existing instruments and to establish greater coherence between the existing directives”.
It acknowledges that the “subject that is likely to become controversial is whether (and to what extent) there is a need for new legislation”. By 2019, Member States had already examined possible extensions to one or more additional categories of third-country nationals: e.g. self-employed and entrepreneurs, jobseekers.
The Presidency therefore wants to relaunch this debate in order to feed the Commission’s action, she explained.
“Strong voices are being raised in Parliament calling in particular for EU legislation for low and medium-skilled workers”, the paper notes. The Commission also announced in its Pact that it would explore ways to simplify and clarify the scope of the legislation, including the conditions of admission and residence of low and medium-skilled workers, with the revision of the Single Permit Directive.
The Member States have therefore once again been asked whether European legislation should cover other areas of legal immigration and, if so, for which categories of third-country nationals, and the discussion has only just begun.
Parliament’s report
Miriam Dalli also stresses that the current legal framework for regular migration is fragmented and meets only short-term needs and that the most frequent problems relate to the application of procedures, conditions of admission and residence (including grounds for rejection and withdrawal), equal treatment, intra-Community mobility and family reunification.
In particular, the report calls for a European platform for talent and a European scheme to attract self-employed and entrepreneurs from third countries.
Link to Council document: https://bit.ly/37BeJvB
Link to Parliament’s report: https://bit.ly/2TmiT2l (Solenn Paulic)