Debate: New avenues for legal labour migration
Date: WEDNESDAY, 19 MAY 2021
Speaker: Margaritis Schinas
Language: EN

Je commence en félicitant Mme Guillaume pour son travail.  This is the first stage of a report that will be followed by Ms Al-Sahlani’s legislative initiative report to come later on the same subject. I particularly welcome that this report is called ‘Avenues for legal migration’, because the question is not ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to migration; the question is how to make migration a successful experience. Most of us participating here in this debate are ourselves migrants. Both my grandparents were migrants at some stage of their lives, and most of us working here have left our home countries to find new opportunities abroad. Many of us live, mix and work with partners, friends and colleagues from different countries and other nationalities, in our daily lives. Migration and mobility is part of the European way of life, and migration can – and should be – a success story in Europe. We just need to have the right framework to ensure that it works for the people embarking on it as well as for both sending and hosting countries. This is, in essence, what legal migration policy is all about. The vast majority of migrants arrive in Europe legally. In 2019, our Member States issued more than 3 million first residence permits to third—country nationals, of which over one million were for employment purposes. With the pandemic, the contributions of migrants to the European economies, labour markets and public services have become all the more evident. Many  of them – frontline workers, frontline heroes in this European struggle –contributed in a crucial way to making it possible for all of us to get through the crisis and address economic and social needs, in particular health care, food and agriculture. For example, in the EU, 25% of the workers in the personal care and food preparation sectors are non-EU-born. As we all know, legal migration is a shared competence between the EU and our Member States. It is Member States’ national competence to decide on the number of workers to be admitted into their own labour markets, but at EU level we can support this by developing harmonised rules on the admission and the rights of workers from third countries and, as you know, we have already done that for highly-qualified workers through the Blue Card Directive, seasonal workers and intra-corporate transferees. Legal migration is an essential component of the Pact on Migration and Asylum, and it is part of the comprehensive external dimension of migration, allowing for the development of tailor—made and mutually-beneficial migration partnerships with key countries of origin and transit. The next steps on EU legal migration policy will also need to take into account all these lessons and the impact of the pandemic. In the short term, the travel restrictions imposed by all EU countries have implied the temporary closure of most labour migration channels, and the administrative capacity of national migration and consular authorities have also been severely affected. We have also experienced in the EU higher unemployment rates and a lower labour demand in the sectors most affected by the COVID—19 crisis. Now that our vaccination strategy is well on track and as we are working towards a recovery of our economy, we need to think strategically about the contribution that labour migration can give to this process. We all know that Europe is an ageing continent. We all know that in many economic sectors and regions there are structural labour shortages that cannot be filled by the domestic labour force or through intra—EU mobility. We also know that the ongoing digital and green transformations require new skill sets, innovation and a specialised labour force, and this is where labour migration can play an important role. We are now losing the global race for attracting the skills and talents that are needed for our competitiveness. That’s why it is so crucial to get this right. Only one in four highly-educated migrants residing in an OECD country chooses an EU destination: one in four, while almost two out of three choose rather to settle in North America or Oceania. So this is a compelling factor: to act, and to act now. Please let me express publicly my gratitude to the European Parliament for succeeding in reaching an important emblematic political agreement on the Blue Card Directive last Monday. Well done, Javier. The new scheme will introduce efficient rules for attracting highly-skilled workers to the EU, including more flexible admission conditions, enhanced rights and the possibility to move and work easily between our Member States. Adopting the Blue Card is a central objective of the new pact, and with this agreement we send a strong signal about our collective ability to agree on key migration files and equip ourselves with a future—proof migration system. But of course, legal migration is not only about highly-skilled workers. I fully agree that we also need labour migrants in low and medium-skilled sectors, because our economies depend on those and the full range of professional chains and the skills that are needed to support them. In the short term, I want to start by presenting quickly the main proposals on legal migration that we have in the pipeline in the Commission. By the end of this year, as we announced in the Pact, we shall present a skills and talent package. The aim will be to address the main shortcomings in the current legislation, as demonstrated by our comprehensive evaluation of two years ago, the fitness check on legal migration and the public consultation conducted recently. Firstly, as I remember very well that I promised during my hearing before this House, we will propose a revision of the Long-Term Residence Directive to improve the rights and the intra-EU mobility of those migrants who are already well integrated in our societies. We will also propose a review of the Single Permit Directive to achieve its full potential of making the admission of low and medium—skilled workers easier for employers and migration authorities. Finally, we will also set out the options to develop an EU talent pool, which will be an EU-wide platform for international recruitment that would help match the skills of migrant workers with the needs of EU employers. EU employers often do not consider using international recruitment to meet skills needs, and international matching, long migration and market test procedures are often a barrier. Added to this is the lack of transparency, and it is costly, especially for small and medium—enterprises. So we need to tackle this challenge with an EU-wide tool. I am aware that this is a sensitive area, where there are very different views on the development of this legislation in certain Member States in particular. We also saw that in the negotiations on the Blue Card Directive. But I believe that these future initiatives are necessary, proportionate and targeted and will help us improve the current legal and policy framework. Let me finish by offering a look at the long term, and here I would welcome the more forward—looking suggestions of your report. Beyond the legislative changes, there are other things that can be done to foster legal pathways to the EU. I have already mentioned the talent pool, but another important initiative is the development of talent partnerships with partner countries. Here, the aim would be to provide a framework to mobilise EU and Member States’ tools for cooperation with partner countries on legal migration and mobility, building on and scaling up some pilot projects that we have already developed in recent years. It is now time to draw on this experience and build mutually-beneficial, win-win partnerships with countries of origin on migration. The Commission will provide political, financial and operational support, and I want to put together a robust and impactful EU offer for these talent partnerships. Talent partnerships will be launched in a high political level virtual conference on 11 June, and I would be very pleased to have the Chair of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE), Mr López Aguilar, representing the Parliament on that occasion, and I count on your contribution to this important project. I am looking forward to working with the European Parliament in the months to come and further discussing your input and suggestions on the way forward.