Between two and three million third-country nationals (TCNs) settle annually in the EU to work or study while up to 200,000 people arrive in the 27-country bloc illegally, according to the Commission.

Yet Europe struggles with severe labour shortages which have been growing over the past decades and are expected to be exacerbated further as the population continues to trend older and as the bloc seeks to transform its economy to become greener and more digital.

According to an assessment commissioned by the European parliament and released in September 2021, “labour shortages are noted for high-skilled and low-skilled work”.

That’s partly because most of the valid permits emitted are done so for family reunification with less than one in five residence permits issued for work reasons.

Additionally, just 1.6 % of first-time residence permits issued in 2019 to third-country nationals were under the Blue Card Directive — an EU-wide scheme to attract highly-qualified workers

The sectors forecast to struggle the most in the future include health care, agriculture, forestry and fishery, and information and communications technology, according to a 2020 public consultation.

‘A solid way forward’
Ylva Johansson, the EU Commissioner for Home Affairs, unveiled Brussels’ plans last week, stressing that “legal migration is essential to our economic recovery, the digital and green transition and to creating safe channels to Europe, while reducing irregular migration.”

“I am confident we are putting in place a solid way forward to attract new talent into the EU for today and tomorrow,” she added.

Under the commission’s proposals, non-EU citizens settling in the EU will be able to acquire the long-term resident status after five years in the bloc regardless of whether they move between member states or change employers when both scenarios currently reset the clock.

The plans also aim to facilitate the process of obtention of a long-term work and residence permit directly from prospective migrants’ countries of origin, reduce processing times and simplify family reunification.

Brussels wants to create a bloc-wide platform where non-EU nationals can upload their CV to help European companies look for people with the skills they need. The commission wants the platform to be up and running by summer 2023 although it hopes that a pilot initiative will be rolled out by this coming summer to facilitate the labour market integration of Ukrainian refugees.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which started on February 24, has upended migratory figures across the EU. More than 5.5 million people, mostly Ukrainian women and children, have now fled to safety in neighbouring countries and other EU member states.

Brussels has activated its Temporary Protection Scheme, granting Ukrainian refugees access to the labour market as well as healthcare and education for at least three years.

Most Ukrainian refugees hope for a quick resolution to the war that would enable them to return home as soon as possible but the longer Russia’s war drags on, the more likely it is that some will permanently settle in the EU.

EU bureaucracy, differences and discrimination
For Silvia Carta, Policy Analyst at the European Policy Centre (EPC) think tank, “the legal migration package has been awaited for long, and not only as a way to frame migration more positively, moving away from a securitized approach.”

“If anything, these proposals should have been presented earlier. However, we need to recognize that the commission has worked hard to also address the labour market inclusion of displaced Ukrainians.”

Still, she told Euronews, “these initiatives have the potential to help increasing legal migration” and provide “concrete opportunities for the admission and the labour market integration of non-EU nationals, strengthen their rights and prevent exploitation.”

She warned of a potential caveat: bureaucracy.

The proposals will first need to be negotiated between the parliament and the council and once adopted, the legislation may not be uniformly transposed across member states and/or lack visibility.

“All the previous legal migration instruments (legislative and non) suffered from major gaps in transposition and implementation at the member states level. For example, as for the Long-Term Residents Directive in its current form, member states continued issuing national permits granting a lower set of rights,” Carta explained.

“In addition, non-EU nationals often had little awareness of their rights, so this is an aspect that should be definitely improved. As for the Talent Pool, the Commission will also have to find ways to make it appealing to employers and to raise awareness about its existence. This will be extremely complex as it will be an EU-wide initiative, covering all member states,” she flagged.

Difficulty having their qualifications recognized in the EU as well as discrimination could also be hurdles to plug the skills gap.

According to the same parliament report, highly educated third-country nationals are more likely to work in low- or medium-skilled jobs than EU citizens (48 % versus 20 % in 2019).

“Male TCNs who entered the EU as asylum seekers are especially at risk of over-qualification, the fact that many TCNs end up doing jobs for which they are overqualified may be due to a number of barriers, the most critical ones being related to language skills and the limited recognition of professional credentials and experience, although legal restrictions and discrimination are also noteworthy,” the report states.

Finally, whether the proposals will also reduce illegal migration is also up in the air.

“I am skeptical that the Commission’s proposals will reduce illegal migration, at least in the short term. There will always be people who don’t neatly fit into a skill category but still want to migrate, or who are in the EU already but with an expiring visa and wish to stay but have no legal way to do so,” Luigi Scazzieri, Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for European Reform (CER) told Euronews.

“Some of the Commission’s plans relate to building ‘talent partnerships’ with third countries. The idea is to offer legal migration routes to then secure co-operation from third countries in tackling legal migration. But I doubt that these schemes will be large enough in terms of numbers to make a real impact,” he said.

Source: https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2022/05/04/eu-immigration-is-broken-brussels-is-unlikely-to-be-able-to-fix-it

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Afghan migrants rest while they wait for transport by smugglers after crossing the Iran-Turkish border | Ozan Kose/AFP via Getty Images

The mere prospect of Afghan migrants heading to Europe’s shores is forcing the Continent to confront its Achilles’ heel: It has never settled a bitter dispute over how to handle asylum seekers.

Six years ago, the European Union descended into in-fighting as it struggled to process asylum seekers fleeing war-torn Syria. Over 1 million refugees and migrants crossed the sea to reach Europe in 2015.

Officials vowed to reform, to create a system that would process and distribute asylum seekers efficiently across the Continent. Next time, they wanted to be prepared.

That never happened.

Now, as Taliban militants seize control in Afghanistan, that failure is looming over European leaders. And it’s led to officials and diplomats floating disparate ideas for how to handle an expected increase in Afghan asylum seekers.

The proposals are as varied as they are piecemeal — build border fencing, fund refugee resettlement in non-EU countries like Turkey and Pakistan, offer immediate but temporary EU protection to Afghans.

In some instances, countries have moved ahead unilaterally. Greece has already installed 40 kilometers of fencing and surveillance along its border.

Greece has increased its ability to track and limit migrant crossings | Byron Smith/Getty Images

EU ambassadors are also expected to meet this week to discuss a collective approach, according to a diplomat. On Saturday, EU leaders offered a preview of their own plan — a mixture of funding for member countries that resettle refugees and partnerships with outside nations.

The throughline, though, is that migration has, once again, seized the EU. And human rights workers warn that the focus could actually harm the bloc. For starters, officials working on migration say the majority of fleeing Afghans will likely stay in neighboring countries, not come to the EU. Additionally, NGOs argue that framing the Afghan crisis as a migration problem will give an advantage to neighboring countries — including Turkey, Belarus and Morocco — that use migrants as leverage or blackmail with the EU, not to mention the far-right political parties within the bloc itself.

“It’s almost playing into the hands of the far right to look at this crisis through that lens,” said Imogen Sudbery, executive director of policy and advocacy for Europe for the International Rescue Committee, an NGO that has worked in Afghanistan since 1988.

An intractable subject

Since 2015, EU countries have repeatedly tried — and failed — to set up a system to evenly redistribute asylum seekers who arrive in the EU.

Last year, the European Commission offered a new redistribution proposal, but there’s little optimism it will advance any time soon.

Instead, the bloc has often outsourced the asylum process to countries beyond its borders. In 2016, amid the Syrian refugee surge, the EU struck a deal with Turkey, under which Ankara pledged to work to stop migrants crossing the Aegean for Greece in exchange for the EU funding several billion euros worth of aid projects in Turkey.

On Friday, rumors started circulating of another incipient EU deal with Turkey. While Turkey doesn’t share a direct border with Afghanistan, diplomats have discussed the possibility that it could play a role in hosting Afghan refugees.

A Turkish official denied the rumors: “There’s no deal between Turkey and the EU on Afghan refugees.”

Migrants from Afghanistan wash themselves on the roadside on the outskirts of Tatvan City, Turkey | Chris McGrath/Getty Images

Still, a second EU diplomat said he expects high-level discussions on the issue between the two sides in the coming days. And sure enough, European Council President Charles Michel tweeted on Sunday that he had discussed the matter with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Turkey isn’t the only country expected to play a role, however. On Friday, Filippo Grandi, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, predicted that “any exodus” of Afghan refugees would likely go to the country’s immediate neighbors, including Pakistan, Iran and Tajikistan. He emphasized the need for humanitarian aid to go to these places if the global community wants to keep Afghan refugees closer to home.

“If the aid to these countries were not consistent, then there would be a strong risk that the movements would continue towards Europe,” he said.

EU leaders spoke directly to such partnerships during a Saturday appearance at a Spanish facility hosting evacuated Afghans who had worked for the EU. Michel called migration a “thorny” topic in the EU and pointed to the possibility of working with non-EU countries on the matter. And Commission President Ursula von der Leyen vowed to raise a global refugee resettlement program at an upcoming gathering of leaders of the G7 group of wealthy nations.

Von der Leyen also said the EU would boost humanitarian aid for Afghanistan above the current €57 million earmarked for 2021. Working in Afghanistan itself poses considerable challenges, of course. EU leaders have stressed that any humanitarian assistance can’t go through the local authorities.

“One option could be to see whether the Taliban can help, but that’s hard to believe,” the second diplomat said.

Build that wall?

Despite long-standing protestations from some EU leaders, fencing has started cropping up along some of the EU’s border states — and some diplomats are discussing whether walling people out should become a more common approach.

The prospect is a touchy one for the EU.

When Hungary built a barrier in 2015 along its border with Serbia and Croatia, the structure quickly became a symbol of a populist shortcut for a multifaceted problem like migration. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, Donald Trump was vowing to build a border wall as an insurgent candidate for U.S. president.

At the time, then-Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker admonished the Hungarian move, saying “walls and fences have no place in an EU member state.”

That reluctance seems to have slowly eroded over time — as long as EU money is not involved.

The Commission didn’t criticize Lithuania when it recently announced a border fence to prevent neighboring Belarus, run by the autocratic Alexander Lukashenko, from intentionally sending migrants across the border. In fact, a Commission spokesperson said, “in the situation that Lithuania faces, such a barrier could indeed be a good idea,” while clarifying that EU money wouldn’t finance “fences as such.”

Migrants are seen through a fence at a camp near the border town of Kapciamiestis, Lithuania | Petras Malukas/AFP via Getty Images

Now Greece has turned its fence-building efforts toward Afghan migrants.

On Friday, Greek Citizen Protection Minister Michalis Chrysochoidis visited the country’s border with Turkey and vowed to keep the dividing line “secure and impenetrable.” He said Greece would move before the EU acted.

“We, as a European country, participate in the institutions of the European Union,” he said. “However, as a country, we cannot wait idly for the possible consequences.”

Observers point to a key moment that occurred last year in March, when von der Leyen, newly installed as Commission president, went to Greece. While there, she thanked the country “for being our European shield in these times.”

Immediate protection — for now

There is also a push within the EU to help Afghans actually come to Europe, swiftly and legally.

In recent days, EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson has called on member states “to increase resettlement quotas” for Afghans. And von der Leyen echoed that call on Saturday, describing it as “our duty” to resettle Afghan migrants. She offered “the necessary budget means” for EU countries that “step up and help resettle refugees.”

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has floated an even more ambitious idea.

During an appearance before the European Parliament on Thursday, Borrell, a socialist, mentioned the possibility of invoking a never-before-used EU clause known as the Temporary Protection directive.

The measure, introduced in 2001 following the refugee crisis in Kosovo, offers instant protection to a refugee category and allows EU countries to redistribute those refugees on a voluntary basis. And unlike many EU initiatives, the directive does not require unanimity. The Council, which comprises the 27 member states, can trigger it with just a majority vote after the Commission proposes it.

“This might be the occasion to use it,” Borrell said Thursday.

Yet EU officials are skeptical. They stressed that the directive was floated during the Arab Spring uprisings 10 years ago and failed to gain enough support among EU member states.

“We should work on it now,” urged one official, saying public opinion might be in favor this time.

“But,” he added, “I’m afraid it is a very limited window of opportunity.”

Nektaria Stamouli contributed reporting.

Source: https://www.politico.eu/article/afghanistan-migrants-europe-no-eu-refugee-plan/

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