Martina Belmonte, June 2015

Selective Migration Policy in EU countries: patterns and causes.

1. The context. The new paradigm of managed migration in the EU.

In the literature about migration policy, EU countries have been generally divided into traditional and new immigration countries. The former had very different patterns of migration: some experienced colonial-related migration, like the UK, others experienced migration from geographically close countries, like Germany. However, what was common to these Western European countries was a policy of active recruitment from abroad in the aftermath of the II WW, mainly in the form of guest workers programmes. This approach stopped in the 70s, after the oil crisis. Yet, while formally traditional immigration countries implemented a ban on foreign recruitment, in fact migrants continued to migrate, either as family members of migrants who were supposed to be temporary, but who settled instead, or as asylum seekers, or as workers subject to exceptional treatment. New immigration countries are mainly Mediterranean countries, which were subject to emigration until the 70s and that started to have their own immigration policy only later. These countries are characterized by high level of migrants illegally residing in the state and have made use of regularization as an indirect migration policy tool. (Messina 2007)

This typology held until the 90s, but policy actions and political discourse in EU countries with regards to migration have changed and, since at least the last decade, a new approach to managing migration policy has widespread. In general, migration is portrayed as a phenomenon that cannot be stopped altogether and that, if managed, can be beneficial for the hosting society. The state is therefore pushed to take an active role in adopting selective migration policies, which are liberal towards some categories of 'desirable migrants' and restrictive towards others deemed to be less desirable. Labour migration is dealt with separately from migration on humanitarian ground, and, within economic migration itself, a skill-based selection is made: high-skilled migrants are favoured, whereas low-skilled migrants' entrance is much more restricted. At the same time, states have started to actively attract internationally mobile students along with investors and entrepreneurs (Menz 2009, Pastore 2010, Menz and Caviedes 2010, Koslowski 2014, Carrera, Guild and Eisele 2014).

In particular with regard to labour migration, in EU countries both the political discourse and actions, in the last decade, have become selectivity-oriented. To pick just some examples: in France, in 2006, at the time when Sarkozy was Ministry of Interior, a new migration law was approved, that promoted more 'immigration choisie' to the detriment of 'immigration subie'; in Spain, in 2007, a fast track procedure to attract highly qualified workers (Unit of Large Companies, which since 2011 includes also Strategic Groups) was

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set up; in Germany, from 2000 to 2005, a Green Card was implemented for specialists in the IT sector; in 2003 the Czech Republic launched a pilot called "The Active Selection of Qualified Foreign Workers" and until 2014 has had a Green Card. The OECD (OECD 2008) speaks about a 'global competition for talents' and the mantra of 'attracting the best and the brightest' has widespread. To play its role in the global 'contest', the EU has equipped itself with a Blue Card that in the original intention was supposed to be the equivalent of the US Green Card. More recently, the EU Agenda on Migration approved on the 13th of May (COM (2015)240 final) has restated the goal of making the EU more attractive for highly skilled workers and, in this context, the review of the Blue Card for highly qualified worker, to make it more effective and wider in scope, has been announced.

2.Literature review on selective migration: economic and political rationales.

Political science literature on migration policy has had mainly two questions on the agenda so far: the one concerns the ability for the state to ever be successful in regulating flows of people trying to immigrate, the other is about the decoupling of very restrictive talks on migration vis-à-vis liberal actions (for instance in the form of regularizations) (Boswell 2007).More recently, a new research agenda came up, under the label of 'managing migration', and aims at analysing why and under which conditions states adopt selective migration policies. Research has been conducted on the economic aspects of managing labour migration (2.1), on the political implications (2.2) and on the political economy of institutions and actors involved (4).

2.1 Why is selective migration policy economically convenient?

In all the Commission's documents (EC 2004, 2005, 2006, 2015), labour migration is linked to mainly three economic issues: the ageing of the population, the skill shortages and the strategy to enhance competitiveness. First of all, selective migration is thought of as a means to tackle the ageing of the population phenomenon. In the main scenario (projections based on the current migration rate), the European population is going to decrease after 2050, whereas under the 0 net migration scenario, this will happen after 20201 (table 1). The shrinking in the population will be particularly severe in some countries, like Italy and Germany (table 2, 3). As a consequence, the dependency ratio2 is going to considerably increase (table 4). Even those countries which at the moment do not have a high dependency ratio, like France and Poland, by 2080 are expected to reach high levels. This means that the participation rate to the labour force will decrease, while the number of people outside the labour market will increase. The economy as a whole will be affected: some occupations are expected to be in shortages, because the demand will grow at a faster pace than the supply (like professions in the care sector); others, whose demand is

1 The main scenario is produced based on 'main input dataset'; the zero migration variant is obtained by considering that the component of international net migration equals zero; the reduced migration variant is produced considering that the component of international net migration is reduced by 20%.2 It measures the ratio between the projected number of persons aged 65 (age when they are generally economically inactive) and the projected number of persons aged between 15 and 64. The value is expressed per 100 persons of working age (15-64).

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expected to be constant, will simply not find enough labour force available. Policies to increase the activation rate targeting the inactive population are already in place and for instance consist in extending the retirement age, increasing women participation, creating incentives to retain people in certain professions. However, there are studies that show that activating more people will not be enough to meet the labour demand, and recruiting from abroad will be necessary. An example is the CEDEFOP/OECD study (OECD 2014), that analyse the conditions to achieve the employment rate target set by the EU2020 strategy in 2010 (75% of the working age population, with difference percentages according to member states). The paper considers possible scenarios under the assumptions that the EU2020 employment target is met, by employing skills demands and supply projections (CEDEFOP 2010). There, it is found that "only nine EU member states have the capacity to reach their national employment target by bringing their unemployment rates back to pre-crisis level until 2020"; for other member states, activation actions are needed. Labour migration (with the appropriate skills for the labour market) is a fast and efficient way to answer to this need.

2015 2020 2030 2040 2050 2060 2070 2080300,000,000

350,000,000

400,000,000

450,000,000

500,000,000

550,000,000

Population projections, EU

EU, main scenario EU, no migration variantEU, reduced migration

Table 1. Source: Eurostat

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2015 2020 2030 2040 2050 2060 2070 20800

10,000,00020,000,00030,000,00040,000,00050,000,00060,000,00070,000,00080,000,00090,000,000

Population Projections, Main scenario

Germany Italy FranceCzech Republic Poland Netherlands

Table 2. Source: Eurostat

2015 2020 2030 2040 2050 2060 2070 20800

10,000,00020,000,00030,000,00040,000,00050,000,00060,000,00070,000,00080,000,00090,000,000

Population Projections, Zero migration scenario

Germany Italy FranceCzech Republic Poland Netherlands

Table 3. Source: Eurostat

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countries0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70Dependency ratio, 2013 and

2080Germany, 2013 Germany, 2080Spain, 2013 Spain, 2080France, 2013 France, 2080Italy, 2013 Italy, 2080Netherlands, 2013 Netherlands, 2080Poland, 2013 Poland

Table 4. Source: Eurostat

Secondly, selective migration is thought of as a means to fill labour shortages. Even with the current level of unemployment, states suffer from labour shortages (EMN 2011, EP 2015) and these are expected to increase after the economic crisis. Although forecasting labour and skills shortage is not an easy task, it is employed to better inform migration policy (Boswell, Stiller, Sraubhaar 2004). CEDEFOP analyses show that the economy is foreseen to growth more in the service and in knowledge-intensive sectors, where high skills are particularly relevant. Besides filling shortages, highly skilled migrants are preferred to low skilled ones because of their fiscal and wage impact. Research on the impact of migrants working in the top section of the labour market has agreed in showing their positive impact in fiscal terms, whereas research about low skilled migrants has produced different results (Rosenblum and Cornelius 2012). Highly skilled migration poses less a threat in terms of competition to the local population because of expanding need in high-skilled sectos and because it is complementary to the local population. Moreover, when it has an impact on the wage structure of the locals, this benefits the low-skilled native workers, with positive redistribution implications (Chiswick 2011, Aydemir 2013)These are reasons that push for selecting highly qualified migrants to enter to the European labour market.

In the third place, highly skilled migration is framed within the competitiveness and the competition for talent strategy. Facilitating highly skilled migration is a strategic response to economic structural changes. On the one hand, European countries are strengthening their knowledge-based economic characteristics, through, for example, investments in research and development and information technology (Duncan 2012, Chiswick 2011, Menz 2011). Capital is invested more and more in invisible factors of production and non conventional skills have become more relevant. Highly qualified workers are therefore essential for strengthening the knowledge-base economy as the EU aims at doing (Lisbon Strategy and EU2020). On the other hand, in a globalised market, labour force move, and attracting and retaining highly qualified mobile workers is a way to attract capital as well. OECD (2008) stresses the importance of mobility for knowledge diffusion and innovation, especially for workers in science and technology. Within this context, states are pushed to compete in attracting the 'best and the brightest' (Hercog 2008)

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2.2 Why is selective migration policy politically convenient?

A recent strand of literature explaining migration policy focuses on the states' legitimation, with respect to potentially competing demands coming from societal actors. Boswell (2007) argues that states have to comply with some specific functional imperatives, in order to ensure legitimacy, i.e. "compatibility of political actions and practices with the expectations and values of a particular public". With regard to migration policy in general, states respond to demands of fairness, accumulation, security and institutional legitimacy. Migration is often linked to security issues and to concerns about institutional legitimacy (civil liberties respect) – although they are more relevant for irregular migration rather than economic and legal migration. Accumulation demands push the states in providing adequate conditions for doing business, whereas fairness demands concern the distribution of socioeconomic resources within insiders. Boswell classifies migration policies in 5 types, according to the functional imperatives they are more responsive to.

Ruhs (2013) employs this framework to analyse specifically labour migration policy; at the same time, he adds some complications: he argues that states face choices under constraints. States' choices have indeed to satisfy the above states' demands, however, they are also constrained by institutional features (for instance industrial relations and welfare states). In general, he argues that to comply with accumulation and fairness requirements, states face a trade-off between rights and numbers (first hypothesis): either few people are allowed to come with full rights, so that they can fully be beneficiaries of redistribution of resources and services, without imposing a too heavy burden; or many people are allowed to come, with restricted membership rights, in such a way that accumulation demands are satisfied without undermining fairness. The degree of such trade off will depend on the institutional constrains that affects states' actions. Yet, specifically with regard to highly skilled migration, the conflict is less severe. On the one hand, fostering highly skilled migration is certainly a way to satisfy accumulation demands and absolves to what another strand of literature calls the 'competition state' (Lavenex 2007, Paul 2012). On the other hand, highly skilled migration is also less problematic for fairness concerns, since highly skilled migrants are likely to be net contributors of the welfare system. Security related issues seem as well less involved, since educated migrants are more likely to be able to integrate (and easier to integrate) in the hosting society. Ruhs' second hypothesis therefore is that migration policy will be more open for highly skilled migrants than for medium and low skilled migrants, both in terms of number of migrants admitted to the countries and in terms of rights granted to them.

While Christina Boswell's paper sets up the theoretical debate, and Martin Ruhs's book develops three specific hypotheses and test them on a large dataset containing all migration policies of high-income and medium countries, Regine Paul (Paul, 2015) provides an interpretative policy analysis of labour migration narratives and reforms in three EU countries (Germany, France, the UK) and at the Commission level. She detects a very selective approach, consisting firstly in attracting the most talented migrants from outside the EU with favourable policies and long-term residency perspective, by virtue of

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their (almost unconditional) positive impact on the economy; secondly, in allowing skilled migrants only on a temporary and when a need is proven; finally, in closing migration venues for low skilled workers, as intra-EU mobility would provide for satisfying demands in the low skilled sector.

As shown above, designing selective migration policy which particularly welcome highly skilled migrants have economic and political grounds. However, there are also some criticisms (that do not make up a strand of literature though), which particularly address the EU selective or partitioned approach in labour migration policy. One criticism argues that in fact EU countries do not always need highly skilled migrants, but may also need low and medium skilled migrants, in sectors that do not meet the supply of the local labour force (because of reservation wages, labour conditions, or skills), for example in the care sector (Triandafyllidou and Marchetti 2014). Another criticism is that highly selective migration policy will not be able to allow as many people as required for having an impact on the demographic projections. Moreover, the vast majority of non-EU citizens coming to the EU is on a non-economic visa - as family member or refugee - and eventually enters the labour market, so managing migration through selective labour migration does not really address the issue of providing the demanded skills for the labour maket (Martin and Venturini 2015). Furthermore, there are criticisms insisting on the artificiality of the distinction between highly skilled and low skilled migration, as if the world were polarised into "elites and proles" (Favell 2014, Collett and Zuleeg 2008): highly skilled migrants can initially come as low skilled workers, or as international students, or may face problems of recognition of competences, or again may have skills which are difficult to codify. The conditions generally employed to define an high-skilled migrants (namely salary and education) may make sense on paper, but in practice do not make much economic sense, for example when the foreigner is young and the potential employer is a small enterprise. With specific regard to the EU selective approach, it has been argued that partitioning labour migration policy and staring from the less controversial categories was a political strategy devised by the Commission to overcome the deadlock at the Council level in the early 2000s (Roos 2013). However, now that the migration has been established as an EU competence, a more ambitious and comprehensive migration approach should be aimed at (Martin and Venturini 2015).

3. Research question. Is there convergence in decoupled migration policies?

The empirical comparative literature on migration policy points towards a worldwide convergence toward greater selectivity in favour of highly skilled migrants, decoupling policies for highly skilled from policies for low skilled (Ruhs 2013, Menz 2009, Menz and Caviedes 2010, Duncan 2012, Boeri et al. 2012, Bhagwati and Hanson 2009, Koslowski 2014, Holtslag, Kremer and Schrijvers 2013, Paul 2015). However, when looking at some data, the alleged `competition for talent` seems to involve fewer participants than expected. From row data on policy outcome, the picture in the EU does not seem one of convergence toward selective highly skilled migration. First of all, in the EU28 the number of permits for remunerated activities represents only 22,7% of all residence permits issues in 2013, and the permits for highly qualified work only 5,8% of

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the remunerated activities permits. Moreover, when looking at the EUROSTAT data by countries, it seems that no one really engage into the contest for talent, since the numbers of permits for highly skilled workers are in general quite low. This does not necessarily mean that in Luxembourg, for example, there are 0 highly qualified workers in 2013; rather it seems to suggest that either highly skilled do not have a specifically dedicated entry access or that the state is not interested in tracking their number.

2013

532,837

31,149

2,346,607

Residence permits issued in 2013 for the first time, EU28

remunerated activities highly skilled workers total

Table 5. Source: Eurostat

GEO/TIMEtotal remunerated activities 2013 hs, 2013 GEO/TIME

total remunerated activities 2013 hs, 2013

EU28 532.837 31.149 Lithuania 2.822 0Belgium 4.347 73 Luxembourg 1.272 0Bulgaria 334 0 Hungary 3.561 0Czech Republic 18.263 69 Malta 2.612 0Denmark 10.684 5.730 Netherlands 12.673 7.046Germany 27.788 11 Austria 3.555 1.228Estonia 579 0 Poland 141.668 387Ireland 4.018 510 Portugal 6.394 767Greece 1.197 0 Romania 1.542 0Spain 50.171 1.368 Slovenia 3.674 0France 17.480 2.667 Slovakia 1.624 0Croatia 599 565 Finland 4.719 971Italy 80.726 1.543 Sweden 17.189 4.666Cyprus 6.613 385 United Kingdom 108.552 3.081

Latvia 793 82

Table 6. Source: Eurostat

Even when a specific scheme dedicated to the entrance of highly skilled migrants is in place, like the Blue Card, numbers remain low.

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CountryBC, 2013 Country BC, 2013

Belgium 5 Lithuania 26

Bulgaria 14 Luxembourg 236Czech Republic 72 Hungary 4

Denmark Malta 4

Germany 11.580 Netherlands 3Estonia 12 Austria :

Ireland Poland 16Greece : Portugal 4Spain 313 Romania 71France 371 Slovenia 3Croatia 10 Slovakia 8Italy 87 Finland 5Cyprus 0 Sweden :

Latvia 10 Table 7. Source: Eurostat

The first aim of my project consists in testing the convergence hypothesis: is it true that EU countries have a selective migration policy in place, which is very open for highly skilled foreigners and restrictive for low skilled ones? Does convergence emerge, beyond national diversities? Are migration regimes more similar by country or by skill? I will systematically collect data of national labour migration policies, and I will test the fol-lowing hypotheses. The first one is a general convergence hypothesis; the others come from Ruhs (2013). While Ruhs tested them on a dataset composed by high and middle in-come countries (46 countries), I will narrow the scope of the hypotheses to European countries only. This will help also in comparing EU countries with respect to the rights and admission trade-off hypothesis and test the claim that the EU "rather than seeking to in-crease labour migration […] by defining expansive admission conditions, the common EU policy seeks to include migrant workers by defining their rights" (Roos 2015).

HP0: In EU countries there is a relevant decoupling effect for policies for highly skilled and low/medium skilled migrants.HP1: Highly skilled migration policies are more open in terms of numbers than policies for low skilled migrants.HP 2: Highly skilled migration policies are more open in terms of rights than policies for low skilled migrants.HP 3: There is a trade-off between rights and openness in policies for economic migrants.

4. Operationalisation of the dependent variable: labour migration policy openness.

My dependent variable is the openness of labour migration policies by skills levels. The first step is to define labour migration policy. Economic migration is generally wider than migration for (solely) economic purposes. Besides migrants that legally enter a state with

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the main purpose to take up an economic activity, there are other migrants, who enter the state legally or illegally, with primary purposes different from finding a job, and who eventually, end up with an employment. As shown above, these flows actually constitute the largest part of overall migration. They include, for example, people who migrate to join a family member or to seek asylum, or migrants who illegally cross a border while hoping in a subsequent regularization. The policy making about these migrants' admission is different from the one for labour migration. Yet, these people are likely to end up in the statistics on the stock migrant workers and do affect the labour market. As a consequence the policies on family reunification or on refugees actually have an impact on labour migration as well. Moreover, in order to satisfy the labour market needs, a state may strategically decide to tighten the rules for labour migrants but loosen the ones for family reunification, or it may opt for increasing the number of regularizations. Recently, policy decisions related to labour migration have concerned free mobility to grant to new EU citizens. Both after the 2004 and after the 2007 enlargements, older member states had to decide whether and which transitional arrangement put in place with regard to labour mobility for new citizens. These decisions are relevant for migration policy.

Pastore (2010) suggests employing a wide concept of labour migration, which encompasses also what he calls the functional alternatives to explicit labour migration. My choice, however, is to focus only on explicit labour migration policy. The pragmatic reason for doing this concerns the scope of my research, which would be too big to be manageable if it included also the functional alternative policies. The theoretical reason is that my interest lies with the policy output, rather than the policy outcome; so, to measure the openness of a policy I will consider the legislative texts rather than the statistics on migrant workers. More generally, the discoursive framework of my project is 'managed migration', so if a state used functional alternatives to labour migration, this would still be a negative result in terms of absence of selective labour migration policy. Finally, since I consider the drivers of labour migration policy to be different from the drivers of family reunification and asylum policy, and since the second part of my research is to find explanations for decoupled migration patterns, it is advisable to keep labour migration policy on its own.

Even once labour migration policy is restricted to explicit labour migration policy, other decisions have to be taken with regard to the identity of the workers. Some categories of migrant workers will be excluded. These are students who graduated in the host country and are granted the right to enter into the labour market to take up jobs. I do not consider post-graduation routes, although they fit into a strategy to retain talent and promote highly skilled migration. I decide to exclude them for manageability purposes, and because post-graduates routes have an impact which depend on the amount of international students in the country. Analyzing them would bring to analyzing also the policies to attract students.

I will also exclude intra-corporate transferees, namely workers moving within the same multinational company across states. These channels are regulated by international agreements and do not properly amount to foreign labour, since they remained employee of the same company they were working before moving. I will also exclude investors and entrepreneurs. They surely fit into the strategy of making the EU more attractive, and legislative initiatives about them are growing (just to bring two example, Italy approved a

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StartUp Visa in June 2014, and the European Commission is considering to include entrepreneurs into the reviewed Blue Card, as stated in the Agenda). However, introducing these categories will introduce an element of great complexity for comparability purposes, since the criteria to allow investors or entrepreneurs in are considerably different from criteria for employee (e.g. they include the amount of the initial investment, the number of created jobs, the percentage spent in R&D).

The focus of the policy I am going to compare, therefore, will be on third country nationals coming to Europe from third country countries with the main purpose of applying or seeking an employment linked to a job offer, so employee or potential employee. Moreover, I will analyse policy on paper, rather than the political discourse, and I will also neglect the actual implementation of policy. This means that it will be difficult to assess whether there is any gap between the discourse political actors support and their actions, or any implementation gap between the objectives written in the laws and the practical implementation of it (de Haas, Natter and Vezzoli 2014)

There is a recent growing interest in the literature on indicators to measure migration policy and several databases are currently under construction (Symposium APSA 2013, Gest et al. 2014): Ruhs (2013) built his dataset on 46 countries, but his data are not public yet; IMPIC, is a project coordinated by Marc Helbling in Berlin and covers 33 OECD countries, but data are not yet available; IMPALA, which is a project built on a transnational network of scholars and covers 26 OECD countries; and DEMIG POLICY database, coordinated by Hein de Haas at Oxford, that covers policy changes in 163 countries. I aim at collecting data on labour migration policy in force in 2015 covering high, low and medium skilled workers, in the form of employees or potential employees in EU countries where the stock of foreign population exceed 2% of the total population. I will refer to primary and secondary legislation, to literature describing the general picture of the policy in place (country reports from the project LABMIGOV coordinated by FIERI, for instance) and to reports on specific topics from the European Migration Network national contact points, OECD reports.

Following to the literature on migration policy indices (Cerna 2009, Ruhs 2013, Symposium APSA 2013), I expect that two dimensions will come up: a dimension of rights and a dimension of admission. Ideally, I will build an overall policy openness index. Furthermore, I will assess the openness of the policy along two axes (figure 1): both with regard to the admission requirements (for instance the necessity to have a job offer, the presence of a salary threshold for the job, sector limitations, the labour market test, skill requirements, quotas, self-maintenance fund, duration of visas) and with regard to the rights granted (for instance family reunification rights, social rights, economic rights, long-term residence acquisition). I will also collect data on the volumes of migrants who actually enter through each programme and data on alternative venues to pursue selective migration policies (regularization, schemes for entrepreneurs, seasonal workers, job-seekers permits and bilateral agreements).

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1 Migration Policy Openness

quadrant linequadrant linetrade-off line

Admission

Righ

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Figure 1

Schemes Number of permits 2013

Openness total

Openness Admission

Openness Rights

Others

Schemes for entrepreneurs?Seasonal workers?Regularisations?Bilateral agreements?Job-seeker permit?

To build my index, the unit of analysis is the programme or, as Gest et al (2014) call it, the 'track of entry'. I have 17 indicators for the openness of the scheme in terms of admission, divided by procedures, demand-side requirements and supply side requirements. I select 10 indicators for the openness of the scheme in terms of rights, divided by entrance and residence rights, economic, social and family rights (see appendix for the list of indicators and scores associated). To each indicator, I will assign a score between 0 and 1. The more restrictive the scheme is, the lower the number. After having collected the data, I will perform statistical analysis on them, to verify their principal components and test the hypotheses. In the following, I will present very preliminary results and the openness scores derive from adding the scores of each indicators and dividing for the number of collected values.

5. Some preliminary analysisI the remainder I will present a pilot study containing the preliminary result of the analysis of migration policy in five countries for a total of 14 programmes. The results are a first comparative attempt. I choose five EU countries which differ from a political economy point of view, which present different migration policy traditions and different degrees of involvement into EU migration policy. I won't present a longitudinal analysis, but I will consider only the policy as it is nowadays (2015).

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5.1. SpainSpain is a so-called new immigration country, which had its first immigration legislation in 1985. Labour migration is under the competence of Ministry of Labour and the law foresees the following immigration channels (Bruquetas-Callejo, Garcés-Mascareñas, Morén-Alegret, Penninx, & Ruiz-Vieytez, 2011; EMN Spain, 2013; Finotelli, 2012, 2014; Sànchez, 2013).- The general regime (GR), within which there is a Catalogue of Hard-to-Fill Occupations draft by a Commission made up by employers, unions and the state. This route does not have a selective filter, and everyone with a job offer may apply (demand driven). For the professions not in the catalogue, there is a labour market test to carry out (which has recently become more scrupulous), to verify the presence of nationals or Europeans available for that job. - The contingente/gestiòn colectiva, which is a quasi-quota (i.e flexible) system, based on the notification of specific labour market needs from regions. It is mainly anonymous recruitment, and generally based on agreements between Spain and third countries, although other applications are possible where the suitable person cannot be found in the country with which there is the agreement. Occupations are in the high, low and medium skilled sector, although the majority of the slots are for seasonal jobs in agriculture. The importance of this channel has decreased over time, and since 2012 the government has not been specifying the number of places available.- The unit of big and strategic enterprises (UGE-CE), in force since 2007 and reformed in 2013, is a channel reserved to very big business or those operating in strategic sectors, like IT, renewable energy, biotechnology, social sciences. This is a fast-track procedure for high-skilled workers, which allows avoiding the labour market test and grants immediate family reunification. The number of applications has not decreased during the years of the crisis.- The Blue Card is the scheme for highly skilled workers introduce by a Directive in 2009. The Directive was transposed on time, unlike the vast majority of EU states, and grants a residence permit up to 4 years for highly qualified workers (defined by education or experience) with a certain salary - 1.5 or 1.2 of the national average. A labour market test is generally carried out.

0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.90.20.30.40.50.60.70.8

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ES_gen ES_UGE-CE ES_BC

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5.2. GermanyGermany is a so-called old immigration country, which since the 70s has banned

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recruitment and, at least formally, decided to become a no-immigration country. In the 2000s, with the Schröder government and the introduction of the Green-Card for IT professionals, the situation started to change. In 2005 there was a major Reform, which introduced only two kinds of permit, the permanent and the temporary one. Recently, there was a debate in Germany about the best system to attract foreign talents and the introduction of a point-based system has been considered (Duncan, 2012). With the exception of the CSU, parties are all favourable to a liberal migration policy, and, in general, there is a climate of consensus about the competition for talents (Brinkmann, 2013; EMN Germany, 2013; Finotelli, 2014; Laubenthal, 2012). The main migration channels are the following. - Paragraph 18 of the Residence Law, which addresses skilled workers with a foreign and recognized training qualification and with a job offer. Applicants should pass through a priority check (carried out at the discretion of the employment service but not lasting more than 2 weeks), except if they are in the white list of shortage professions, that are exempted. - Par. 19a of the Residence Law, which transposed the Blue Card Directive and in fact introduced a temporary permit for high skilled. The transposition was late and this was a symptom of a wider discussion that was going on within the government coalition on the best tool to attract highly skilled migrants. Applicants with a recognized tertiary education certificate need a job offer with a salary equals 1.5, or, if the profession is in shortage, 1.2 the national average salary. They have a faster access to the long term residency (33 months or 21 with an intermediate-level German) and to nationality (8 years). Applicants should not undergo the labour market test, except for the shortage positions, in order to check the fairness of the work conditions.

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5.3.UKThe UK endorses a managed migration paradigm since the 2000s. The idea of 'attracting the best and the brightest' came up during the Blair government and was restated in the Conservative Manifesto in 2010. In 2005, there was an overhauling reform which introduced the point-base system, which aimed at rendering the immigration system more effective and more flexible. A migrant could come to the UK under 5 tiers: the first one for highly skilled applicants, the second one for skilled workers, the third one for low-skilled, the fourth one for students and the last for temporary workers with very specific characteristics. The third tier has never been open, whereas the tier 1 for general high-skilled migrants has been closed in 2011 (Lucie Cerna & Wietholtz, 2011; Devitt,

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2012; Spencer, 2011). With regard to the EU, the UK may opt-out of migration measures, and in fact it did so for all labour migration measures (Ette & Gerdes, 2007; Geddes, 2005). The schemes that are of interest here are the following.- Tier 1 has an exceptional talent route, which allows the entrance of very prominent people in the field of arts, sciences, engineering and technologies. They have to be sponsored by entrusted bodies and only a limited amount of permits are available per year (1000). The permit is temporary and the renewal is conditional on income. - Tier 2- general targets skilled people with a sponsor offering a job that guarantees a salary above a certain threshold. The labour market test is carried out and lasts 28 days, but applicants in shortage jobs are exempted, as well as applicants for PhD-level jobs or whose salary is exceptionally high. Applicants should have a decent level of English and family reunification is allowed only once the main applicant has settled.

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5.4. FranceFrance has been quite active in the recent decade with regard to its migration law, and has tried to steer toward an active management of migration flows ('migration choisie' rather than 'migration subie' as Sarkozy put it).- La carte salarié covers migrants with a job offer which is longer than 12 months, while the permit temporaire applies whether the job offer is shorted. It does not require any specific qualification, but only the consistency between the candidate's profile and the job offer. The minimum salary is requires and the labour market test is carried out. - Carte Bleu was introduced in 2011. It addresses highly qualified workers with tertiary education or 5 years of professional experience. It requires a job offer with a salary threshold reaching at least 1.5 the annual average salary- Carte de competence and talent has been introduced in 2006, under Sarkozy as Minister of Interior. It aims at highly qualified people wanting to pursue a project in France that promotes co-development. It does not necessarily require a job offer, but the applicant has to show that has his/her own resources. Highly skilled are experienced graduates, professionals, investors and managers. The permit lasts three years and it is renewable; however, limitations are set for applicants coming from countries from the zone de solidarité primaire.

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0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.90.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8 France

FR_temp FR_sal FR_CCT FR_CBRights

Adm

issio

n

5.5. The NetherlandsThe Netherlands has a very selective migration policy and is one the biggest countries attracting highly skilled in the EU. For graduate students from top universities, it provides also for a route where the job offer is not necessary.- The scheme for employees is a general scheme, subject to labour market test and basic language test. The salary must be at least at the minimum wage level.- The scheme for highly skilled is a scheme for highly skilled jobs, defined by the salary and not subject to labour market test or language requirement. - The Blue Card targets highly skilled workers and has a higher salary threshold that the previous scheme.

0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.90.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8 the Netherlands

NT_empl NT_hs NT_CB

Rights

Adm

issio

n

5. Conclusion Considering the graphs individually, the expectations about the scheme distribution are not always met: they are more in Germany and France, less (although to a different extent) in Spain, the UK and the Netherlands. By putting together the graphs in one, in the upper-right quadrant, most of the schemes are for highly skilled workers (although there is also the general Spanish scheme). In the upper-left quadrant, there is a variety of scheme, both for high and low skilled. This does

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not seem to suggest a competition for talent. Further analysis is surely required.

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0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.90.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8Schemes mapping

DE_18 DE_BC ES_gen ES_UGE-CE ES_BCUK_1 UK_2 FR_temp FR_sal FR_CCTFR_CB NT_empl NT_hs NT_CB

Rights

Adm

issio

n

18

Questionnaire for indexing the schemes

ADMISSION - TARGET & PROCEDURE

Is there a cap? If yes, please explain how much and how it is determined- yes [0]- no [1]

Is the permit renewable?- yes [1]- no [0]

Which is the length of the permit?- less/equal 1 year [0]- as long as the job/depends on the length of the job [0,5]- between 1 and 2 years [0,2]- between 2 and 3 years [0,4]- between 3 and 4 [0,6]- between 4 and 5 [0,8]- 5 and more (LTR) [1]

Is there a fee?- yes and it is comparable to the fee for the national ID [1]- yes and it much higher than the fee for the ID [0]

Employer's fee:- yes [0]- no [1]

Is there a deadline for the procedure?- yes, it is less than 90 days [1]- yes and it is 90 days or more [0,5]- no [0]

ADMISSION - REQUIREMENTSDEMAND SIDE

Is a job offer necessary?- yes [0]- no but it affects the successful rate of the application [0,5]- no, it is irrelevant [1]

Are there sectoral/occupation restriction?- yes, only for some specific following categories [0]- if some conditions hold (for example, no degree, no white list), there is some restriction [0,5] - no [1]

Is there a minimum threshold for the salary?- yes, more than the average [0]- yes, the average or almost the average [0,2]- yes, the minimum in the category/as nationals [0,4]- yes, the minimum wage [0,6]- no, but it affects the application [0,8]- no, irrelevant [1]

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Are there salary derogations for specific groups of people? [applicable only if the previous one scores less than 0,5]- yes [1]- no [0]

Has the labour market test to be carried out?- yes [0]- no [1]

How long should the advertisement period be?- a check on the vacancy or 1 week [1]- between 1 and 2 weeks [0,66]- between 2 and 4 weeks [0,33]- more than 4 weeks [0]

Are there derogations for the labour market test?- yes [1]- no [0]

SUPPLY SIDE

Is a specific educational achievement required?- yes, the tertiary or higher (>BA) [0]- no, but it affects the successfulness of the application/ /yes, lower than tertiary (e.g. vocational training) [0,5]- no, it is irrelevant [1]

Is specific previous experience required?- yes, the following [0]- not, but it affects/in alternative to education [0,5]- no, it's irrelevant [1]

Does the worker need a maintenance fund, beside the salary?- yes, and it is: xxx [0]- no [1]

Does the worker need to demonstrate competence in the national language?- yes, before the arrival, the following level xx [0]- yes, but only after the following period and for the following level (for renewing the permit but not for LTR): xx [0,5]- no [1]

ENTITLEMENTS

RESIDENCY RIGHTS

What does it happen if the person loses the jobs? - immediate expiration of the visa [0]- the worker can stay in the territory to look for another job in the same sector for less than 6 months [0,33]- the worker can stay in the territory to look for another job for whichever sector for less than 6 months [0,66]- the worker can stay and look for a job for more than 6 months [1]

How long the person can be absent from the country in a year?

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- < or = 6 months [0]- > 6 months [1]

After how long the person can apply for the long-term residence status?- it is not possible to change status into permanent [0]- after 5 years [0,33]- after 5 year in the EU, not necessarily in the state [0,66]- less than 5 years [1]

Are there language requirement to access to LTR?- yes [0]-no [1]

ECONOMIC RIGHTS

If the person wants to change the job, how much free the access to the labour market is?- the person can change job in whichever sector [1]- the person is bound to a certain sector and/or geographic area for a certain period of time <= 1 year [0,66]- the person is bound to a certain sector and/or geographic area for a certain period of time > 1 year [0,33]- the person is always is bound to a certain sector and/or geographic area (<5 years) [0]

SOCIAL RIGHTS

Is the access to social benefits equal to the nationals?- yes- similar, with the following exceptions/after some time- no access at all

FAMILY RIGHTS

Is family reunification possible?-yes [1]- no [0]

If yes, after how long?- immediate, simultaneous applications or within 6 months [1]- < 1 year [0]

Who are the members of the family included? (not married partners, adult children, old parents or with health issues)- spouses and children [0]- partners included [0,5]- parents and other relatives included [1]

Are there any integration restrictions before the arrival?- yes [0]- no [1]

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