European Union Migration Policies for the Highly Skilled: A Critical Appraisal

Abstract

Keywords

• highly skilled migrant,EU migration policies

AVRUPA BIRLIĞI’NIN NITELIKLI GÖÇMENLERE YÖNELIK GÖÇ POLITIKALARI: ELEŞTIREL BIR DEĞERLENDIRME

Öz

There have been many scholarly discussions if EU can be a global power or not. Global power normatively has to have certain conditions and properties. Being a great military power would not make a country become a global power, in contrast with what some scholars argue. A global power also has the best of the brains, is attractive to researchers, provides freedom of expression and leaves space for creativity as much as gives the tools for novelty. All these cases might be provided but access to them might be limited by the immigration policies. Even though the EU and member countries in particular have achieved great accomplishments in their migration policies for the highly skilled, they do not seem to be sufficient and farsighted. The perspective towards immigration affects the whole approach to the high skilled: promoting circular migration, difficulty in transitions to permanent statuses and lack of consideration of skill losses. It is assumed that the high-skilled migrants automatically integrate and so integration policies are not devised specifically for them. It is also believed that they would bring the know-how to their home countries as a result of return migration but many of them after four or five years, hesitate to turn back to their homes. They would rather lead transnational lives. These details are not considered in EU migration policy for the highly skilled. I suggest that the EU policies on high-skilled migration should be combined with other integration policy tools. Otherwise, EU will remain behind the traditional brain attracting countries such as Australia, Canada and the USA and will never be a full-fledged global power. I tried to answer this question indeed: are the high-skilled migration policies of the EU sufficient in their design to turn EU into a global power? The answer is “no” and I explain why in this paper.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• EU migration policies,highly skilled migrants,high-skilled migration policies,global power,normative power

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