To address the continent’s growing labor shortages, the European Commission unveiled “the first ever EU framework for organized mobility towards Europe” on Wednesday, November 15th, aiming to bring in millions of third-world migrants in the coming years.
“The skills and labor shortages … are starting to become endemic,” Commission Vice-President Margaritis Schinas said during Wednesday’s press conference, adding that the pressure for a central recruitment system has never been higher, both from member states and businesses.
The new proposed framework will have three components, making it easier for migrants to enter Europe legally.
The first part is the so-called ‘Talent Pool,’ an online platform where each country can post its vacancies in critical sectors for non-European job seekers to find and apply to. It will be similar to the EURES platform, only for third-country workers instead of domestic ones. Once a “match” is made, the system will send the application to the national immigration services to start processing the visa request.
“This Talent Pool is not about challenging national competencies [on migration]; it [is] about facilitating the recruitment of the right skills as easy [sic] and swift[ly] as possible,” Internal Commissioner Ylva Johansson said, adding that participation will remain voluntary for the member states.
Over 3.5 million people arrived in Europe through legal pathways last year—a figure that is expected to grow but not quickly enough for Brussels. She claimed that Europe will need to add at least seven million new people to the workforce by 2030 to keep certain industries running.
The second leg of the package will be “recommending” that EU member states considerably cut back on the red tape concerning labor migration—thereby making it easier for people to apply—by shortening visa processing times and simplifying translation and authentication procedures.
“In certain areas, we will be asking member states even to skip the labor market test … to facilitate the smooth arrival of the needed third-country laborers,” Schinas added.
Finally, the third component will be recommendations to broaden the EU’s “learners’ mobility” initiatives, like Erasmus, to cover nearly all types of educational institutions and to give more opportunities to those outside Europe.
Furthermore, Brussels will scale up the already existing ‘talent partnerships’ initiative, to make further deals with outside countries to provide vocational training for future EU workers and educate them on the legal pathways to immigrate to Europe. Currently, the EU has five such partnerships (with Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Bangladesh, and Pakistan), but more are expected in the near future.
Commissioner Schinas refused to answer the question of what exact figure or increase in labor migration would be the Commission’s desired target, but said the EU “would like to invite as many [migrants] as possible, provided that they match the vacancies of the system.”
Another question raised during the press conference was the issue of secondary movements within the Schengen area. After all, a work visa will mean a temporary residence permit in only one member state and not the others, but there’s nothing to stop anyone from settling in other countries, regardless of whether those countries participate in the scheme or not.
But both Schinas and Johansson claimed there is nothing to be concerned about because there is no reason anyone would choose the uncertainty of being an illegal migrant over being a legal resident.
“This package is also a strong, if not the strongest, disincentive to irregular migration,” Schinas said, claiming that illegal migration can only be dealt with by encouraging people to take legal pathways instead.
According to the commissioner, “magical solutions” to the migration crisis “like closing down borders, [and] going back to nationalism” exist only in the “toxic” discourse of the “populists and demagogues” of Europe, while Brussels is ready to provide “good solutions … that contribute to a better world and more cohesive societies.”
Many conservatives, however, point to alternative solutions to the demographic crisis that aren’t even discussed in Brussels. Family policies designed to incentivize having children have proved to be effective, such as in Hungary, yet the country receives only criticism from its Western neighbors.
“If we do need more workers, perhaps now is the time to encourage couples to have more kids,” German MEP Markus Buchheit (ID) told The European Conservative a few months ago, as Berlin was negotiating its own ‘talent partnerships’ across Africa. “It’s an alternative plan that certainly deserves more thought than importing people from very different cultures from around the world.”
