Serious concerns have been raised about a European Union plan to attract highly qualified immigrants because it is likely to fuel the African brain drain. At a European Parliament hearing late last month on 'blue card' visa proposals, fears were expressed that easing immigration procedures for academics, researchers and scientists from developing countries would cause economic damage to their home states.

Under proposals prepared by the European Commission, the EU's executive body, blue card visas would ease immigration procedures for skilled migrants. With the cards, the migrants would be able to move more easily between the EU's 27 member states - something often hindered by red tape today.

There was general agreement at the parliamentary hearing that Europe fared poorly in attracting highly trained immigrants compared with the US, Canada and Australia. But Portuguese socialist MEP Armando França asked whether "attracting highly skilled workers from non-EU states does not undermine solidarity" with developing countries.

França said pro-actively seeking to poach home-grown talent from Africa and elsewhere "seems paradoxical when we see that the [European] union has policies to support less developed countries".

"I have major doubts about this proposal", França declared, and asked whether the EU should rather concentrate on forging cooperation agreements with non-EU countries with skilled migrants sought by European universities and companies.

And Africa is the major concern. An analysis written by the secretariat for the parliamentary committee on civil liberties, justice and home affairs, which staged the hearing, focused on Europe's neighbours to the south.

The analysis paper voiced concerns that a blue card scheme would exacerbate the problem of brain drain from the African continent. It noted the United Nations Development Programme had reported that outward migration cost African countries more than EUR2.5 billion (US$4 billion) through the employment of 150,000 expatriate professionals annually.

The parliamentary paper continued: "Coupled with the loss of trained professionals due to HIV-AIDS, brain drain erodes the valuable human capital critically needed for economic growth and human development in Africa."

As a result, the blue card scheme needed to be designed very carefully. The briefing note suggested the scheme should go hand in hand with a pro-active development policy that helped developing countries train additional academics, scientists and researchers required by European markets.

The brain drain could be addressed by "redirecting training in sending countries to sectors suffering from labour force shortages". The paper also called for financing of co-investment programmes for countries and sectors particularly affected by the brain drain.

In this way, it would be possible to devise a European migration policy that brought about added value and "win-win-win" results - "benefits for receiving countries through meeting labour market shortages, for sending countries through guaranteeing remittances for development, and for migrants themselves through offering employment and control over the use of their wages".

But it was clear the overwhelming concern of participants at the hearing was the health of the EU economy rather than the impact of immigration reform on Africa.

German Christian Democrat MEP Ewa Klamt, who is leading discussions on the issue in the committee, stressed: "Only some 5% of highly qualified economic migrants come to the EU as against the 55% who choose the US or Canada. In contrast, the EU has taken in the largest proportion of unqualified workers from the Maghreb countries - 87%."

Klamt said this was a problem, with 27 different immigration admission systems in the EU being a key cause and one that would be solved by an EU-wide blue card system for skilled migrants. Given this situation, she said "we must act swiftly by creating a simpler procedure and more attractive residence conditions and allowing for family unification".

Similarly, in a report for the hearing, the EU commerce federation BUSINESSEUROPE raised concerns about one solution to the brain drain - making immigration access temporary through a 'circular migration policy'. This could "prove a mutually beneficial tool making it possible to tackle labour needs in the EU while maximising the benefits of migration for the countries of origin", the federation said.

But it also expressed doubts about such a policy: "It is worth noting that there could be a potential contradiction between the strong emphasis put simultaneously on both circular migration on the one hand and the efforts to foster integration of third-country nationals on the other."

keith.nuthall@uw-news.com


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