Can the European Union deliver feasible options for legal migration? Contradictions between rhetoric, limited competence and national interests
To The Point | June 2019
The European Union (EU) has a limited scope of action in the policy field of legal migration for work and training. While it upholds a rhetoric of comprehensive migration policy, including legal migration options as a core element of its broader migration management cooperation with third countries, its competence in the external dimension of legal migration policy is restricted by Member States’ interests. This To the Point describes the discrepancies the EU is facing with regard to its internal and external legal migration policymaking. The SVR Research Unit comes to the conclusion that while full harmonisation within this policy field is not yet in sight the EU and its Member States would be better advised to showcase the value added of joint initiatives and to start living up to their promises of promoting legal migration for work and training among its partner countries.
The publication is part of the project “Legal Migration for Work and Training: Mobility Options to Europe for Those Not in Need of Protection”.
