Debate: Legal migration policy and law
Date: TUESDAY, 23 NOVEMBER 2021
Speaker: Abir Al-Sahlani
Country: Sweden
Language: EN

Today, a challenge that is becoming more and more pressing is the demographic shift in our continent. The shift will exert greater pressure on public budgets when it comes to funding while fewer people will be working to generate tax revenues for social security systems in the budget and more people dependent on social security systems. You do not have to be a mathematician to understand or realise that the sums don’t add up. The mismatch of skills on the Member States’ labour markets causes our economies to lose over 2% of productivity every year. Businesses are struggling to find adequate skilled workers within our Member States or within the Union. When our companies and businesses struggle to find skilled workers, they struggle then with growing and expanding. That means losing out on creating more jobs, opportunities and on tax revenues to fund our welfare services.  The demographic and economic challenges that our Member States are facing is an urgent issue. We need to address it properly and with adequate solutions. To properly address the issue of mismatch of skills and difficulties in recruitment of workers, the EU needs to become a more attractive region. A more attractive region and the notion of becoming attractive for labour migrants of all skill levels who are considering moving abroad for work. But how do we become as a region more attractive? How do we avoid falling into economic stagnation? How do we tackle our demographic challenge?  In my report, I have included several proposals that provide solutions to these problems. With the talent pool, third-country nationals will be able to register and express their interest in migrating to the EU. Employers will be able to quickly search and find the workers with the right set of skills that they need. This will improve matching of the labour markets of the EU Member States and meet their different needs and even help businesses grow.  In this report, I have also addressed the issue of medium- and low-skilled labour migration, and it is simply because of the fact that over 13% of key workers in our societies are labour migrants, especially in the agricultural and health sectors. The businesses of our Member States have large differences in terms of needs, and that is why we need an admission scheme for all skill levels.  We cannot, to be honest, speak of creating opportunities to fill vacancies in the labour market without also addressing the issue of exploitation and abuse in our labour markets of labour migrants. Seasonal workers are often prone to be exploited by their employers. By allowing them to leave an abusive employer and find a new one without having their work permit revoked for a three-month period, we will give them an option to leave an exploitative employer without having the risk of losing their legal right to stay within the EU. Council representative, dear Commissioner and dear colleagues, in the debate on labour migration let us not forget one thing. Labour migration means that a person arrives in the EU, in a Member State within the EU, and starts working directly, pays their taxes, and contributes to funding our welfare states and being an active part of our societies. It should not be compared or mixed up with other parts of migration or asylum policies, as a well-functioning legislative framework for labour migration can be described as a triple win: a win for European businesses, a win for the employee, and a win for the Member State.  I would like to take this opportunity as well and thank my dear shadow colleagues with whom we have been negotiating to achieve this file. They have been very constructive, and although we sometimes had some difficult discussions touching upon sensitive issues, we have always shared a common goal and it is to find a final agreement, even if we had to make some difficult compromises. I do hope that you all will vote in favour of this report.