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European Commissioner Franco Frattini

European Commissioner Franco Frattini

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About this Event

20 Jun 2005

The Green Paper on an EU approach to Managing Economic Migration

About the Speech:

Vice President and EU Commissioner of Freedom, Security and Justice, Franco Frattini will address members of the Institute on the Commission’s Green Paper, “On an EU approach to managing economic migration?. This event will take place at the Institute of European Affairs on Monday 20 June 2005 at 12.30 pm.

The Green Paper seeks to address the issue of how to best regulate the entry and residence of third-country nationals seeking employment within the EU. It also highlights the problem arising out of demographic change, reducing the EU’s working population necessitating economic migration so as to sustain economic growth. Proposed solutions include a US style ‘green card’. Vice-President Frattini has emphasised the importance of a common harmonised policy in order to fight illegal immigration.

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Vice-president Frattini

Member of the European Commission responsible for Justice, Freedom and Security

“The Green Paper on an EU approach to Managing Economic Migration?

Institute of European Affairs
Dublin, 20 June 2005

Thank you for affording me the opportunity to give you a brief account of what the Commission is doing – and what it is planning to do – in the field of economic migration.

As you may know, last January the Commission launched a wide public debate on the future of our common legal migration policy, specifically on which rules should be adopted at EU level for the admission of migrants for paid and self-employment and on the added value of having such a European approach.

The purpose was to discuss with relevant stakeholders their needs and concerns, as well as to hear their views and receive input on the strategy which the European Union should adopt in respect of the sensitive issue of labour migration. I firmly believe that the time is right to have this debate in a rational way in order to find common shared solutions. I would like to underline that, before the end of the year, the Commission will present a policy plan on legal migration, including admission procedures, as requested in the Hague Programme.

Before discussing the main outcomes of this public debate, which culminated on 14 June in a public hearing, I would like to make some preliminary remarks.

Economic migration is at the core of the present debates in Member States. We can say that there are two main schools of thought. The first sees migration as one of the ways to address labour market needs and to try and compensate for the forecasts on the ageing of the European population. The second school is, on the contrary, in favour of reducing the present migration flows or at least of limiting them through a skills-based approach.

I am convinced that Europe will need more migration, since labour and skills shortages are already noticeable in a number of sectors and they will tend to increase. Demographic projections indicate that a decline in employment in the order of 20 million workers for EU-25 can be expected between 2010 and 2030 as a result of demographic change. This phenomenon will undoubtedly affect some Member States more than others. Nevertheless, it is a common trend. Eurostat projections, for example, foresee that the working age population in the EU-25 will start declining in 2011. This is an average figure that takes into account the fact that in many EU countries this decline has already taken place. Ireland is in a different position, since this phenomenon is expected to begin only in 2035.

Obviously, I am conscious that immigration is only one of the solutions to compensate for demographic ageing and to sustain the growing costs of our welfare systems. First and foremost, the EU must tap into its existing human resources (EU nationals and third-country nationals already resident in EU territory, including second and third generations). Strong investment in training and education are necessary, since these are the best means to facilitate the insertion in the labour market of those who are currently excluded.

Saying that we need to tap into our existing resources inevitably leads us to the issue of the transitional measures which are presently limiting the freedom of movement of the citizens of the new Member States. This is a really important issue on which we need to further discuss in the EU, also taking into consideration that new Member States are rapidly becoming immigration countries.

In Ireland you have chosen a different approach. You have decided not to impose any limitations for the time being. According to data from your Government, 61,000 nationals from new Member States have registered with the tax and social authorities since May 2004. This influx seems not to have caused serious disturbances to the Irish labour market.

One explanation could be that this flow of new workers was accompanied by the government decision to issue work permits only to highly-skilled and well-paid third-country workers. I believe that your experience should be better analysed and shared with the other EU Member States. It could encourage at least some of them to lift in advance the limitations provided for in the Accession Treaty.

Volumes of admission of third-country nationals seeking work in the EU are - and will – remain the responsibility of Member States. It needs to be clear in our minds that decisions to admit third country nationals are no longer the exclusive remit of each Member State. Such decisions affect other Member States and the EU labour market as a whole. It is sufficient to consider the impact of acquired rights such as the right to travel within the Schengen area, to deliver services in other Member States or to move to another Member State, once long-term resident’s status has been obtained, to understand that the situation has changed. This “political difference? has encouraged Member States to review their national positions and to discuss a common way to proceed.

The European Union must therefore aim at efficient and effective management of legal migration flows and, at the same time, fight illegal migration in all its dimensions, in particular as concerns the trafficking of human beings and organised crime. We also need to intensify our efforts aimed at reducing the informal, black economy, which acts as a “pull factor? for illegal immigration and, in general terms, leads to exploitation. The Hague Programme has underlined this priority by calling on Member States to reach the targets for reducing the black economy set out in the European employment strategy.

Without integration measures for third-country nationals, we cannot discuss legal migration. Legal migration and integration are inseparable and should mutually reinforce each other. By the end of July, the Commission will adopt a Communication on integration, designed to provide a framework for the integration of third-country nationals in the European Union. We will propose concrete measures to put the Common Basic Principles on integration (adopted by the Council in November 2004) into practice through clear actions at national and EU level (e.g. national contact points, creation of a website etc).

When it comes to admission procedures, any system which seeks to manage economic migration, should be complemented by a common fast-track procedure that Member States could apply in case of urgent need for certain categories of migrants, from high to low skilled. This would be in line with The Hague Programme when it asks for “admission procedures capable of responding promptly to fluctuating demands for migrant labour in the labour market?. The concept, that some persist to call “European green cards?, could be made available to Member States provided that they inform each other by making use of the mutual information system that will soon be proposed by the Commission.

As regards third-country migrants in the EU, from January next year the long-term directive will be applicable and long-term residents will be able to move to another Member State for work, study and other reasons. I believe this is an important achievement and clearly shows the added value of having a European migration policy. Now the question is whether limited mobility should also be granted to other categories of migrants who are not long-term residents. While remaining aware of the difficulties that can be linked to such scheme, we could reflect on whether it might be possible to improve our capacity to attract the migrants we need by developing a system which is open, quick and gives advantages in terms of admission and residence conditions.

For instance, if a multi-national company employs a migrant, say an engineer, in Athens, it may well be the case that after two years the same person could be extremely useful to them at another of their branches in Rotterdam. The company should be able to transfer staff between Member States easily. In this sense, work and residence permits should be intrinsically linked in order to allow firms to better allocate the human resources that are already within the European common market.

On the subject of improving our capacity to attract the highest skilled migrants, Europe must learn from countries like Australia, Canada and the USA who have longstanding experience in this field. We need to put together high quality packages to persuade the top end of migrants, such as engineers and biologists, to choose Europe as their destination. We already achieved this by agreeing on a facilitated procedure for the admission of third-country researchers, which will be applicable in two years and to which Ireland opted in. We now have to see how to push our common policy further following this successful precedent.

We should consider linking any admission procedure to training, for example language courses, in countries of origin. The Commission would certainly be prepared to co-finance such initiatives with well-established institutions already providing similar services. Perhaps an even more streamlined procedure is needed for some sectors, such as very low-skilled seasonal workers.

I take note of the broad support for the idea of having a joint application for residence and work permits, but noted less enthusiasm for a single residence/work permit. I sincerely believe that a single permit indicating the purpose for which a third-country citizen is present on EU territory is important, not only to facilitate procedures when the permit has to be renewed, but also for enforcement reasons.

As far as the issue of fundamental rights is concerned, we should be absolutely steadfast in not accepting any compromises. The Hague Action Plan clearly states that we need “to ensure the full development of policies enhancing citizenship, monitoring and promoting human rights?. Human rights are at the heart of the European project.

Moreover – and I am glad that the vast majority of the consulted stakeholders (including Ireland) agree with me on this important point – it is my firm belief that third-country nationals should enjoy the same working conditions and rights as our nationals. This will protect both the third-country migrants and our workers from discrimination and exploitation. We should agree at EU level on a basic set of rights, common to all Member States: this will encourage migrants to go where their work and skills are needed rather than where the social security is more advantageous. This scenario will continue to occur until complete harmonisation is achieved, but we can at least try to level out the worst disparities.

In terms of political response to the publication of the Green Paper, the Commission received a very high number of written contributions from our stakeholders (more than 120 contributions). Several contributions were particularly constructive. It was a clear success and confirmation that the “bottom-up approach? chosen was the right one.

I participated in the public hearing on economic migration organised by the Commission last Tuesday and I was really pleased to see the broad support for this initiative and for the perspective of a common European framework for economic migration. We heard many different voices: Member States, NGOs, local authorities, academic experts, members of the European Parliament and social partners.

Even though the opinions could of course not fully coincide, I can attempt to extrapolate some common messages:

  • first, any system agreed must be simple, un-bureaucratic and flexible enough to adapt to the different needs of the labour markets in the Member States;
  • most of those who took the floor asked for a horizontal approach, accompanied by special schemes for either high skilled or seasonal workers (or both);
  • many pointed out the added value of having an EU internet portal where information on labour market needs and admission procedures could be centralised;
  • broad support was given to the principle of Community preference, even though the definition of this concept should be better clarified and it is clear that there must be some exceptions, for example for sectors where there are proven shortages;
  • the idea of a job-seeker permit was supported in general terms, but in that case I agree that it can only be applied effectively if there are strong guarantees in place and it is limited to certain sectors (care of elderly people, high skilled, etc), in order to limit abuses and avoid it being used for trafficking people “legally?;
  • finally, we need to devise a common framework of rights, which is essential for ensuring fair treatment of all third-country nationals.


These are my preliminary reflections that I am happy to share with you today. Of course we will need to analyse in more detail these different points so as to come up with concrete proposals in the policy plan that we will present at the end of the year.

To listen to this speech download the RealPlayer file below, RealPlayer software is available for free at www.realplayer.com.

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