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EU immigrant 'blue card' to attract skilled workers

The European Union's top justice official is advocating for the bloc to open it's doors to 20 million more immigrant workers over the course of the next two decades.

Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini called on the 27-member states to "look at immigration as an enrichment and as a inescapable phenomenon of today's world, not as a threat," in a speech delivered at an immigration conference in Lisbon Thursday. He said that he is weighing proposals to develop a "Blue EU Labour Card" program, which would "attract the workers needed Brussels, Belgium (AHN) - The European Union's top justice official is advocating for the bloc to open it's doors to 20 million more immigrant workers over the course of the next two decades. Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini called on the 27-member states to "look at immigration as an enrichment and as a inescapable phenomenon of today's world, not as a threat," in a speech delivered at an immigration conference in Lisbon Thursday. He said that he is weighing proposals to develop a "Blue EU Labour Card" program, which would "attract the workers needed to fill specific gaps." Under the proposal, highly qualified foreigners would enter one of the EU's member states for a period of two years before either returning to their home countries or applying for a renewal in the same or a second member country. After five consecutive years in any one state, they would be able to seek longer-term residency status, at which point they would be entitled to move freely across borders. The proposal would also include boosting the legal immigrants rights to work under fair conditions. He plans to formally unveil the proposal on October 23. The plans have immediately encountered opposition in some of the EU's more well-off nations. "Germany could not take in large quantities of foreign workers just because it needs them at one particular moment," Economy Minister Michael Glos told Spiegel magazine. "Since this would be likely to be in addition to already large-scale immigration, the stress placed on housing, public services and community relations in the UK would be enormous," said British shadow Home Secretary, David Davis." We would introduce an explicit annual limit on the numbers of non-EU migrants who can come to the UK which would be set by Parliament," he added. According to Frattini, 18.5 million third country nationals, mainly from Asia and Africa, were living inn the EU as of January 2007. They comprised roughly four percent of the bloc's total population.