(Article for the Model of the Council of the European Union)
It is no news that the European
Union (EU) is struggling in different aspects of its life. After Brexit, the
world is questioning about the future of the integration, specially because
there are uncountable fronts of battle opened that the politicians have to face
every day to make the inhabitants’ life less uncertain.
One of the discussion topics is
related to the increasing immigration: not only because of the refugee crisis
but also because of economics imbalances, many people –particularly young
people– are leaving their home countries to find better job opportunities
abroad. According to a report from the Organization for Economic Co-operation
and Development, Germany, is the second destination chosen by immigrants, after
the United States.
Historically speaking, through The
Hague (2004) and The Stockholm, Programmes (2009), the Union is committed to recognize
that legal migration is an important key of advancing economic development as
it can increase “competitiveness and economic vitality”. This gives a role to
the new inhabitants as they are expected to help to build a new landscape for each
country through their permanent or temporal work.
In this perspective, the recent
Directive 2014/36/EU related to seasonal workers set the ground rules for the
Member States. According to the document, this type of employees are the people
that come from a third-country to work for a “limited period of between five
and nine months”.
With expanding differences among the
perspectives, the Union has “develop a common immigration policy aimed at
ensuring, at all stages, the efficient management of migration flows and fair
treatment of third-country nationals staying legally in Member States”. But why?
As the numbers show, in 2015, “the proportion of employees aged 20–64 in the
EU-28 with a contract of limited duration (fixed-term employment) was
11.1 %”, according to the European Commission. With this percentage going
up every year, it is important to guarantee by law employee and employer’s
rights and duties.
As said before, the importance of
Germany cannot be denied. Not only is chosen as a main destination but also has
the most committed open-door policy: Germans and their leaders are mostly in favor
to keep the country available for working immigrants. An important fact is
that, according to the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, “Germany
issued 85.5 percent of all EU Blue Cards that were granted in
2015”.
Source: © BAMF|Source: Eurostat 2015
It is good to remark that, “in the
context of the important demographic challenges that will face the Union in the
future with an increased demand for labour, flexible immigration policies will
make an important contribution to the Union’s economic development and
performance in the long term”, as established in the new Directive. This means
both an opportunity and a challenge as there are still huge differences among
the State Members’ policies –and their inhabitants points of view– that should
be worked on to provide a better perspective for the future of the integration block
that keeps trying to provide answers to major social problems.
