The future of EU migration policy - a BusinessEurope position paper

Key messages

The EU’s future legal migration policy should evolve into a model of stronger coordination of national immigration policies. This approach would allow Member States to address their varying needs for skilled migrant workers while doing so in a way that is broadly coordinated at EU level.
Due to different national labour market specificities and skill requirements, a single, horizontal approach for the admission of all legal third country nationals is not appropriate and should not be part of the follow-up to the legal migration fitness check. Consequently, no new legislative action is required in the context of the current legal migration framework.
The EU should continue its ongoing background work into exploring the feasibility of adapting a form of an expression of interest system approach to migration management to the European context. This work should take into account Member States’ individual needs and must keep in mind that the participation of Member States in such an approach would need to be on a voluntary and case by case basis.

A European migration policy that facilitates the recruitment and retention of skilled third country nationals in a way that takes into account the differing needs in each national labour market through a more demand driven approach.
A conclusion to the revision of the EU Blue Card directive in a way that retains the possibility for Member States to use their own national schemes for the admission of highly skilled third country nationals in parallel to the Blue Card scheme