EU considers skilled migrant scheme

Unemployment in many European nations is high - for example in Poland it is 15 per cent and in Belgium it is 10 per cent.

But many businesses cannot find skilled workers to meet their needs.

Jan Pieter De Nul runs an international dredging and construction company. He needs engineers but regulations make it too difficult to recruit from outside the European Union.

"We absolutely need a Russian engineer," he said.

"I've found one, who studied here in Belgium at one of our technical schools, was perfectly integrated, spoke Flemish, and I have not been able to get his papers in order."

Illegal migration

Unlike Australia, there is no system for skilled workers to migrate to the EU. Instead, most immigrants come in on humanitarian grounds, or illegally via boats into Spain or Italy, and they do not have the skills the labour market needs.

The EU hopes the new scheme will deter illegal asylum seekers and people smugglers by giving migrants a legal channel into Europe.

Franco Frattini is the European Commissioner responsible for Freedom, Security and Justice. He unveiled the new scheme in Brussels.

"Europe does need highly skilled workers. Europe is able to recruit, so far, just 0.9 per cent of highly skilled workers, while the United States has 3.5 per cent, Canada 7 per cent and Australia 9 per cent," he said.

"That's why our proposal is to adopt a common procedure - it is not right to enter but it is right to get a legal job in Europe."

Graham Watson is a member of the European Parliament. He says the blue card was modelled on the US Green card and the Canadian points system.

"One of the reasons why we are looking at how the Canadians and the Americans have done it is that they have been far more successful at attracting skilled workers than we have," he said.

"We've attracted lots of unskilled workers, many of whom have come in illegally. What the proposals on the table today seek to do is to make Europe more attractive to highly skilled workers."

Mr Watson says the scheme is a start.

"The Commission will in due course come forward with further proposals for how you deal with the issue of seasonal workers, how you deal with the issue of paid trainees coming in from elsewhere," he said.

"But it's all an attempt to make sure that we have a migration policy that is managed so that we are setting the terms by which people come in here, not the criminal gangs who are trafficking them in at the moment."

'Not fair' on other countries

But a Professor of demography at St Johns College at the University of Oxford, David Coleman, believes the blue card is problematic.

"Migration always has some use in meeting all kinds of skills shortages, which may be long-term or short-term, so there's nothing particularly new about migration having beneficial aspects," he said.

"This blue card system seems to have some drawbacks, though - the first one is that it is EU-wide, and that assumes various things which aren't true.

"As far as I can see in terms of work force needs and in terms of demographic structure there's no such thing as 'Europe' because the situations in different countries is so diverse."

He also says the scheme fails to take into account where the workers will come from.

"On the whole, to a depressing extent, we've been pillaging the poorer countries in Eastern Europe and particularly the poorer countries in the third world of their skilled workers, their doctors and engineers and all the rest that they've expensively trained," he said.

"I don't think it's particularly fair that we should grab them all rather than stirring ourselves to improve our own rather poor education and training systems."

Those who receive a blue card would have to work in the member state that issued the card for a set period of time, probably two years, and after that, they would be able to work in any EU country.

The scheme needs the approval of all EU members. © 2007 Australian Broadcasting Corporation