European Parliament, Council and Commission make progress towards a political agreement on new EU rules for attracting highly qualified employees from third countries

The three institutions consider the reform of the EU Blue Card a key element to relaunch EU legal migration policy, which is essential to the comprehensive EU approach on migration. The aim is to better attract highly qualified and skilled third-country workers needed by the EU economy through a revised EU-wide instrument. On 10 December, the three institutions made progress towards a political agreement on the key elements of the reform, and are confident it could be reached in the next months.

The Commission presented its proposal in 2016, but no further progress could be achieved after 2017. Following the presentation of the Commission’s New Pact on Migration and Asylum in September 2020, the European Parliament and the German Presidency of the Council relaunched negotiations on the Commission proposal of 2016. The Parliament, the Council under the upcoming Portuguese presidency, and the Commission will now continue the negotiations building on the significant progress achieved.