Debate: The Commission's proposal for "Attracting skills and talent to the EU", particularly the Talent Partnerships with North African countries
Date: WEDNESDAY, 8 JUNE 2022
Speaker: Maroš Šefčovič
Language: EN

Every year between two and three million people come to the EU legally, in contrast to somewhere between 125 000 to 200 000 irregular arrivals. I think we have seen during the pandemic that 13% of frontline workers – I’m talking about doctors, nurses, drivers – were migrants. So it’s one in eight.  Legal migration has a positive impact because it gives migrants opportunities to improve their lives. It provides skilled workers for host countries, and it’s boosting the economy for all. To recover from COVID our economies, indeed, were in dire need of new workers for tourism, hospitality, the IT sector, health and logistics. All of them are sectors with structural shortages.  The EU is welcoming the refugees fleeing from the war in Ukraine, but this does not preclude the need for a sustainable and common approach to labour migration to address the EU skills needs in the long term. While we need more workers in the EU, we are fewer and fewer of an working age. In 50 years, the EU’s working—age population will decline from 65% to 55%.  Parliament has been vocal through different resolutions and debates in urging the Commission to take action on legal migration. You asked us for ambition and we replied with ambition, but also with pragmatism and vision. With our package, we propose a full set of legal, operational and forward—looking actions.  To start, we suggest to revise the long—term residence directive and the single permit directive to attract new talent, to improve the EU’s appeal in the global competition for talent, and to simplify admission procedures. We also propose to set up an EU—wide matching platform – the EU talent pool – to improve international recruitment, to match EU employers with talent.  As a first step, we are launching a talent pool pilot to map the skills of refugees from Ukraine to help them integrate. Legal migration is essential for our economy and plays an important role in our migration management, and is central to the comprehensive and mutually beneficial partnerships we are building with key countries of origin and transit.  Reducing irregular migration paves the way to step up regular migration. By the end of this year, the Commission intends to launch tailor—made Talent Partnerships with three key partners – with Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco. The Partnerships must be a win-win for all. They will allow transforming the risk of brain drain into brain gain. They will help identify priority sectors for skills that support the socio—economic development of Member States and partner countries, and provide new training and work experience in the EU or countries of origin. We invite Member States to identify economic sectors of mutual interest and fully involve the social partners, unions and employers. We hope that these three Talent Partnerships will pave the way for others in the near future. For the next steps we see three avenues for further action: care, youth and innovation. We are launching studies on long—term care and youth mobility, and we are discussing with the Member States an EU scheme for innovative entrepreneurs and this autumn will organise a high—level event to continue discussing with you and the Member States how to implement these proposals and make them a reality on the ground.