The aim of the paper is to analyse the impact of the EU in labour migration policy. Ten years after a common migration policy was called for, the Blue Card Directive (2009) has been the first policy output in this area to be approved: it concerns the conditions of entry and residence of highly qualified third country nationals in EU countries and it is conceived as the European answer to the global competition for talents, in which the EU countries entered later than the US, Canada or Australia. However, the Directive has been quite unanimously considered a very disappointing answer, compared to the initial aspirations of the Commission, and the added value of the regional cooperation has been questioned (Peers 2009, Cerna 2010, Gumus 2010, van Riemsdijk 2012, Pascouau et al. 2013, Eisele 2013). My aim is to analyse how competitive the Blue Card is as a tool for attracting qualified immigrants to the EU, and to do so I will compare high-skilled immigration policy in a country in which the Blue Card directive had a considerable effect on it, i.e. Italy, to a country that opted out of the Directive, still sharing the goal of attracting the 'best and the brightest', i.e. the UK. While member states that had already a policy to attract qualified migrants faced little potential benefit from this new entry route, member states that lacked such a policy, like Italy, had the most to gain. Moreover Italy, due to favourable political circumstances, has enacted the directive in a quite liberal fashion (Cerna 2013). On the contrary, the UK started earlier to divert its immigration policy in favour of the most qualified applicants (Spencer 2011). The literature has put forward some indices to compare highly skilled immigration policies (Lowell 2005, Cerna 2009); I will stem from them to design an index that measures the attractiveness of a policy both in terms of entry requirements and procedures, and in terms of entitlements granted to applicants and family members. The result of the comparison will be that, although Italy and the UK score equally in entry requirements and procedures, yet Italy scores considerably higher in terms of entitlements, and this is thanks to the Blue Card. My contribution then supports the thesis (Roos 2014) that the added value of the regional cooperation in migration policy is the inclusion of rights rather than the expansion in numbers.
The Blue Card in the Context of EU Immigration Policy: A Comparison between Italy and Britain / M. Belmonte - In: The 18th International Conference of Young Scholars : Crucial Problems of International Relations through the Eyes of Young Scholars ; 25 years without the Iron Curtain: Challenges for International Relations : proceeedings / [a cura di] Z. Dubský, R. Havlová. - [s.l] : University of Economics in Prague, 2014 Jun 01. - ISBN 9788024520582. - pp. 12-33 (( convegno The 18th International Conference of Young Scholars : Crucial Problems of International Relations through the Eyes of Young Scholars ; 25 years without the Iron Curtain: Challenges for International Relations Conference tenutosi a Prague.
The Blue Card in the Context of EU Immigration Policy: A Comparison between Italy and Britain
M. BelmontePrimo
2014
Abstract
The aim of the paper is to analyse the impact of the EU in labour migration policy. Ten years after a common migration policy was called for, the Blue Card Directive (2009) has been the first policy output in this area to be approved: it concerns the conditions of entry and residence of highly qualified third country nationals in EU countries and it is conceived as the European answer to the global competition for talents, in which the EU countries entered later than the US, Canada or Australia. However, the Directive has been quite unanimously considered a very disappointing answer, compared to the initial aspirations of the Commission, and the added value of the regional cooperation has been questioned (Peers 2009, Cerna 2010, Gumus 2010, van Riemsdijk 2012, Pascouau et al. 2013, Eisele 2013). My aim is to analyse how competitive the Blue Card is as a tool for attracting qualified immigrants to the EU, and to do so I will compare high-skilled immigration policy in a country in which the Blue Card directive had a considerable effect on it, i.e. Italy, to a country that opted out of the Directive, still sharing the goal of attracting the 'best and the brightest', i.e. the UK. While member states that had already a policy to attract qualified migrants faced little potential benefit from this new entry route, member states that lacked such a policy, like Italy, had the most to gain. Moreover Italy, due to favourable political circumstances, has enacted the directive in a quite liberal fashion (Cerna 2013). On the contrary, the UK started earlier to divert its immigration policy in favour of the most qualified applicants (Spencer 2011). The literature has put forward some indices to compare highly skilled immigration policies (Lowell 2005, Cerna 2009); I will stem from them to design an index that measures the attractiveness of a policy both in terms of entry requirements and procedures, and in terms of entitlements granted to applicants and family members. The result of the comparison will be that, although Italy and the UK score equally in entry requirements and procedures, yet Italy scores considerably higher in terms of entitlements, and this is thanks to the Blue Card. My contribution then supports the thesis (Roos 2014) that the added value of the regional cooperation in migration policy is the inclusion of rights rather than the expansion in numbers.
Pubblicazioni consigliate
I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
