Understanding the diversity of EU migration policy in practice: the implementation of the Blue Card initiative

Abstract

High-skilled immigration (HSI) policies, and their harmonisation across member states, have been an important part of the EU's Lisbon strategy focusing on the knowledge-based economy, and the subsequent ‘Europe 2020’ which emphasises economic recovery. Intra-EU mobility of high-skilled workers is quite low, and member states have targeted high-skilled third-country nationals (TCNs), both through national policies and the EU's recent Blue Card scheme. However, the Blue Card Directive (adopted in 2009, transposed by June 2011), despite its scope for Unionised regulation, allows member states to decide how many high-skilled TCNs they want to admit, if any. The article argues that tensions between openness and closure to migration exist at both member state and EU level. These tensions are resolved through considerable diversity in the conditions and rights accorded to Blue Card holders across member states. Drawing on new empirical data, the article analyses first results of the transposition of the Blue Card Directive. It examines how far, in what form, and with what implications, diversity continues regarding the principle of mobility for these migrants across member states. The pattern and nature of transposition are hence important in shaping an EU-regulated liberal market in labour recruitment, and the development, or otherwise, of rights-based mobility regulation.

Keywords:

• Blue Card
• diversity
• European Union
• high-skilled immigration
• Lisbon strategy
• regulation

Acknowledgements

The special issue editors, Emma Carmel and Regine Paul, deserve particular thanks for their helpful comments on earlier versions of the paper as well as their overall support during the process. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the participants of the panel at the CES Conference, Boston, 22–24 March 2012 for their suggestions. Financial support of the Leiden University College Research Centre is greatly appreciated.

Notes

1. Europe 2020 continues the Lisbon agenda, but it is a new approach. While retaining the ‘Growth and Jobs’ agenda, EU2020 aims to address poor implementation and differences across the member states in speed and depth of reforms (Commission 2010b, 2010c).

2. Cross-border mobility varies according to member state, from 13.3% of Cypriot citizens to 0.4% of Austrian nationals (Bonin et al. 2008). However, mobility is hard to measure due to limited, incomplete or contradictory data, and shortage of transnational surveys (Zimmermann 2009).

3. EU8 are Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.

4. ‘EU directives specify certain goals that must be achieved in every member state. Within a set time period, national authorities have to adapt their laws to meet these goals, but are free to decide how to do so’ (Commission 2012b).

5. The link between diminishing internal border controls and strengthening external borders rests on the assumption that control happens mainly at the border. Granting of work and residence permits and providing access to welfare provisions are more important mechanisms for control (Huysmans 2000, 759).

6. Reasons include language, family and social networks, cultural differences, diversity in labour markets and needs and the absence of recognition of qualifications (Zimmermann 2009).

7. Guild (2007, 5) argues that the ‘the list does not conform either to the ILO 97 or Council of Europe Convention' on Legal Status of Migrant Workers 1977 (ten member states have signed it). To date, only ten member states have ratified ILO C97 and only five the ILO 143, while none have ratified the UN Convention on the Protection of the Rights of Migrant Workers and Their Families (Oberreuter 2011, 7).