According to its members, Europe should move from a scheme of issuing short-term work visas to a system used in the United States. This would allow concluding long-term labor contracts with foreign workers.
The proposals announced by the European Commission also include issues of obtaining a residence permit, as this is directly related to employment. The proposed scheme would allow a foreigner who has received a green card in one country to move freely within all 25 EU member states.
Issues related to attracting migrants to work are vitally important for the EU, since the economic well-being of many countries largely depends on them. However, as the special authorized representative of the European Commission, former Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, stated, the proposed solution "does not encroach on the rights of EU member states, which themselves determine how many and exactly which foreign workers they are ready to let into their territory." "This does not open unlimited movement across the entire European Union. Our initiative is merely a proposal for action, not a final decision," Frattini noted.
Currently, writes the Financial Times, most EU countries agree that a common policy should be pursued toward migrants from other countries, but many issues are still resolved by the laws of each individual state. Despite the fact that this problem has partially acquired a political coloration due to nationalist sentiments, the demographic situation in Europe makes discussion of the possibility of introducing a green card inevitable, the publication emphasizes. Demographic forecasts of the European Commission show that even with the current scale of migration of foreign workers, the number of people of working age in Europe will decline by 20 million from 2010 to 2030.
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