Labour shortages are affecting member states across the EU, with the average EU job vacancy rate doubling between 2012 and 2022. These labour shortages may cause the EU’s most severe migration crisis yet, putting common EU objectives such as the green and industrial transitions at risk. In order to combat labour shortages and create a migration system fit for the future, the EU must focus on simplifying and harmonising its legal framework on labour migration, expanding migration opportunities to low- and medium-skilled workers, and aligning migration legislation with other policy objectives.
Labour shortages are a common challenge for EU member states. Shortages in sectors vital to the green and digital transition risk attaining common objectives of the EU’s industrial strategy. But as much as the need to attract skilled workers is a shared concern, the EU lacks a common labour migration policy that lives up to the challenge. In this Policy Brief, Lucas Rasche argues that the EU’s current labour migration acquis is highly fragmented, underused, and largely detached from other policy areas. Hence the EU needs to structurally re-think its approach to labour migration for it to truly compete in the global race for talent.
The EU’s cooperation with third countries on migration disproportionally prioritises deterrence and return at the expense of other foreign policy objectives.
Two reasons illustrate why this particularly problematic now. First, the EU relies on third countries to support its effort of further isolating the Russian regime for its war of aggression against Ukraine. And second, labour shortages require the EU to conclude partnerships with third countries on labour migration.
The EU must hence revise its migration diplomacy. This requires shifting from a predominantly domestic agenda and short-term objectives to considering migration part of the EU’s wider geopolitical ambition and a better balance of priorities in cooperating with third countries.
The instrumentalisation of migration is back on the EU’s agenda. One year after Belarus instigated a migration crisis at its border with the EU, concerns emerge that Russia could instrumentalise a second exodus of Ukrainians to undermine the EU’s support to Kyiv. Member states’ recent failure to agree on the proposal for an Instrumentalisation Regulation should be an opportunity to revise the EU’s approach. In fact, the proposed Regulation would have done more harm than good. Two things need to happen for the EU to develop an effective response to the instrumentalisation of migration. First, the proposed Regulation should be amended to avoid the EU stepping into a “hypocrisy trap” by third countries seeking to expose the EU’s alleged double standards on fundamental rights. Second, the EU needs a revised migration diplomacy that addresses the structural factors facilitating the instrumentalisation of migration by third countries.
The proposal for an asylum procedure at the EU's external borders, presented by the Commission at the end of September, is intended to ensure "clear, fair and faster" procedures, according to Commissioner Johansson. While the proposal has the potential to re-structure access to the European asylum system, achieving all three of these objectives simultaneously seems unrealistic. While speeding up the procedure at the border and simplifying its application, Lucas Rasche and Marie Walter-Franke argue that the proposal jeopardises the respect of fundamental rights and thus impedes the fairness of the procedure.
Following the proposal for an EU Talent Pool under the New Pact on Asylum and Migration, the Commission is currently conceptualising a skills-matching mechanism to attract qualified migrants. This presents an ideal opportunity to account for the diverse skill sets of refugees, who possess qualifications needed to fill member states’ shortage occupations in both lower and high-skilled professions. In light of the need to diversify and increase the number of safe and legal pathways for refugees, this Visions Paper proposes to incorporate a designated Refugee Track into the envisioned Talent Pool and outlines three ways of linking it with complementary pathways.
Following the activation of the Temporary Protection Directive, Lucas Rasche argues in this Policy Brief that member states must urgently transition from crisis-response to developing a longer-term strategy for implementing temporary protection. This requires member states to shift from a reactive to a forward-looking policy. The Brief outlines four areas that will require particular attention in the months ahead: the disproportionate allocation of refugees across EU countries (i), the long-term financial costs of hosting refugees (ii), devising a tailored integration strategy (iii) and preparing for beneficiaries of temporary protection to transit into a durable protection status (iv). The Policy Brief then concludes by discussing the potential spill-over of activating the Temporary Protection Directive to the wider EU asylum policy.
Two years after the presentation of the New Pact on Asylum and Migration, this policy brief takes stock of the negotiations. Although there has recently been some movement in the efforts to reform the EU asylum system, which have been stuck for years, little has remained of the promised "fresh start". The authors argue that the proposed reforms and the reference to individual progress in the negotiations seem increasingly out of touch with reality given the ongoing grievances at the EU's external borders. In view of the Council's and the European Parliament's (EP) goal of concluding negotiations by April 2024, the progressive forces in both institutions should use the remaining time to make access to a fair asylum procedure and respect for fundamental rights at the EU's external borders central building blocks of the reformed asylum system.
This Policy Brief maps the EU’s immediate response to the arrival of more than three million Ukrainian refugees. While the decision to grant them immediate access to protection by activating the Temporary Protection Directive has raised the question whether current events will lead to a paradigm shift in EU asylum and migration policy, the EU’s greater test is what member states and the Commission will do next. The Policy Brief discusses why a mechanism for the fair sharing of responsibility is urgently needed and outlines what such a scheme could look. It closes by arguing that the current welcoming of Ukrainian refugees is less a paradigm shift in EU asylum and migration policy than an example of an increased politicisation of access to protection.
In the election campaign, the topic of migration has been conspicuous mainly by its absence. However, this should not obscure the fact that the new federal government has difficult questions to answer: What model of responsibility-sharing is it seeking at the EU level to advance the stalled asylum reform? What about the EU-Turkey agreement? And what options are there to expand legal escape routes? In this policy brief, Lucas Rasche writes that an answer to these questions first needs a credible narrative of what a "European solution" in migration policy can look like.