Migration: to open the borders or not?

An emerging labour migration regime?

Tough discussions lie ahead of MEPs this autumn as they consider three draft directives on labour migration.

The most controversial proposal is on seasonal workers – the first attempt by the EU to create a legal route for labour migration by unskilled workers in tourism, agriculture and horticulture. “People are quite exercised by it,” said Claude Moraes, the UK centre-left MEP responsible for the draft directive in the Parliament.

He said that his colleagues on the civil liberties and home affairs committee and on the employment and social affairs committee had submitted hundreds of amendments, which are currently under discussion. The Parliament's centre-right MEPs want to tighten the safeguards against overstaying and the conditions for granting permits.

The two committees are also considering a draft directive on intra-corporate transferees – managers who are being transferred to a location in the EU by their companies.

Thirdly, MEPs will be asked to endorse a single residence and work permit for non-EU citizens, a matter on which they reached a compromise in principle with national governments before the summer break. Important details remain to be agreed.

The draft directive is supposed to streamline procedures for obtaining such permits and to create a common set of rights for permit-holders. Member states will be free to set their own conditions for issuing the permits, however, which suggests that hopes of rationalising divergent national policies are ill-founded.