Mobility and migration

Worker mobility brings important economic advantages for businesses and workers. That is why there is a need to promote free movement by overcoming barriers to worker mobility, fostering mobile workers’ employment participation and encouraging circular mobility to maximise the benefits of mobility for countries of origin and destination.

Central to achieving this is ensuring that the appropriate conditions and policies are in place at European and national level.

The challenge for the EU mobility policy in the coming years will be twofold: first, it will need to facilitate mobility through concrete EU actions. Second, it will need to sustain and improve political acceptance of worker mobility by addressing the loopholes in the relevant EU and national regulations on free movement of workers. Situations of abuse and adverse effects on countries of origin as well as on countries of destination should be avoided.

In the area of immigration, an EU framework needs to be in place that facilitates the entry of highly skilled migrants from outside the EU as well as their mobility within the EU once they are here. This is needed to address the broad range of skills and competences that will be required in Europe as a result of the projected decline of the EU’s working age population.

Contact

Robert Plummer

Senior Adviser
Tel:
+32 2 237 65 75
Last updated: 15 January 2019