Labour market performance and migration flows - European ...

European CommissionOccasional Paper 60, Volume Iworkers, remunerated trainees and intra-corporate transferees. It also encourages circularmigration as a strategy that responds to “labour needs in Member States while contributing,through eventual return, to the development of countries of origin and offering skills andother gains to participating migrants.”On the other hand, there is increasingly a sense that a common EU migration policy needsto encompass the needs of countries of origin and resort to new cooperative mechanismswhich are founded more on a global than on a unilateral EU approach. This is why the GlobalApproach to Migration adopted in December 2005 highlights the need for a multilateral pathas migration patterns have defied geographical and narrow institutional arrangements. Thedocument draws attention to “how best to share information on legal migration and labourmarketopportunities”. 41However, upon analyzing the 2005 Global Approach to migration and how it has beenimplemented so far (see Section 6.3 below on the Blue Card, for instance), one is firstinclined to inquire whether the Global Approach to Migration only partially addresseseconomic migrants’ profile and flows, and whether it really aims at laying the foundations fora holistic approach responding to all migration imperatives and realities in the Euro-ArabMediterranean area.In a wider perspective, whilst studying the evolution of the EU common labour andmigration strategy that culminated in the Global Approach to Migration, it must also be askedto what extent the origin countries’ needs have been effectively taken into consideration indrafting the major milestones of EU migration policy. In fact, though promising, the GlobalApproach is not presently endowed with sufficient components to remedy both policy gaps inthe origin countries and the root causes of migration. It is important to recall here that theEuropean Council, in its conclusions regarding a comprehensive European Migration Policyin 2006, underscored the fact that “the migration and development agenda will be intensifiedby increasing coherence between the Union’s various policies, including their financialinstruments, with a view to addressing the root causes of migration.” 42However, it is to be acknowledged that so far no transversal approach providing the missinglink between the EU and origin countries’ labour needs and demands and taking into accountthe root causes of migration against the backdrop of EU-Arab Mediterranean countrieseconomic cooperation has been sufficiently developed. In the near future, more seriousreflection should be given to asking how the Global Approach might not only mirror EU labourand migration needs, but also those of the origin countries and – on a deeper level – the rootcauses of migration at both ends. Moreover, consultative processes in the EU-ArabMediterranean area should identify how the Global Approach could be equipped with morepowerful and specific instruments capable of respecting this double dynamic:1) Address all economic emigrants.2) Devise a transversal problem-solving track which not only reflects a demand-drivenapproach to migration based on EU labour needs, but that is also based on theacknowledgement that a holistic approach to migration should integrate the needs andpriorities of origin countries.41 See “Global approach to migration: Priority actions focusing on Africa and the Mediterranean”,http://register.consilium.eu.int/pdf/en/05/st15/st15744.en05.pdf.42 See footnote 34.84