EUROPEAN COMMISSION.Brussels, 18.11.2011.COM(2011) 743 final.COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS .The Global Approach to Migration and Mobility. SEC(2011) 1353 final. Globalisation, demographic change and societal transformation are affecting the European Union, its Member States and countries around the world. According to United Nations assessments, there are 214 million international migrants worldwide and another 740 million internal migrants. There are 44 million forcibly displaced people. An estimated 50 million people are living and working abroad with irregular status. Dialogue at global level can address some of the shared challenges and concerns. However, it is at regional, national and local levels that each individual and each stakeholder will seize the opportunities brought by migration and by mobility.
Migration is now firmly at the top of the European Union’s political agenda. The Arab spring and events in the Southern Mediterranean in 2011 further highlighted the need for a coherent and comprehensive migration policy for the EU. The Commission has already presented a range of policy proposals and operational measures on migration, mobility, integration and international protection in its Communications of 4 and 24 May 20112. Those proposals werefully endorsed by the European Council in June this year3 and since then the EU has taken immediate action by launching dialogues on migration, mobility and security with Tunisia and Morocco in early October and making the necessary preparations to start the dialogue with Egypt. Similar dialogues will follow with other countries in the Southern Mediterranean region, notably with Libya, as soon as the political situation permits. The dialogues allow the EU and the partner countries to discuss in a comprehensive manner all aspects of their possible cooperation in managing migration flows and circulation of persons with a view to establishing Mobility Partnerships.
In its Communication of 4 May, the Commission highlighted the need for the EU to strengthen its external migration policy by setting up partnerships with non-EU countries that address issues related to migration and mobility in a way that makes cooperation mutually beneficial. To this end and reflecting the Stockholm Programme and the Stockholm Programme Action Plan4, the European Council’s June Conclusions invited the Commission to present an evaluation of the Global Approach to Migration and set a path towards a more consistent, systematic and strategic policy framework for the EU’s relations with all relevant non-EU countries. This should include specific proposals for developing the Union’s key partnerships, giving priority to the Union’s neighbourhood as a whole.
Moreover, despite the current economic crisis and unemployment rates, European countries are facing labour market shortages and vacancies that cannot be filled by the domestic workforce in specific sectors, e.g. in health, science and technology. Long-term population ageing in Europe is expected to halve the ratio between persons of working age (20-64) and persons aged 65 and above in the next fifty years. Migration is already of key importance in the EU, with net migration contributing 0.9 million people or 62 % of total population growth in 2010. All indicators show that some of the additional and
specific skills needed in the future could be found only outside the EU.
This is the context in which the EU’s Global Approach to Migration has evolved since it was adopted in 2005. It was designed to address all relevant aspects of migration in a balanced and comprehensive way, in partnership with non-EU countries. The Global Approach was evaluated in the first half of 2011 through an online public consultation and several dedicated consultative meetings. The consultations confirmed the added value of the Global Approachand the valuable results it has delivered. They also indicated a need for stronger policy coherence with other policy areas and a better thematic and geographical balance. The Global Approach should, therefore, reflect the strategic objectives of the Union better and translate them into concrete proposals for dialogue and cooperation, notably with the Southern and Eastern Neighbourhood, Africa, enlargement countries and with other strategic partners.
In order to reap the benefits that well-managed migration can bring and to respond to the challenges of changing migration trends, the EU will need to adapt its policy framework. This Communication puts forward a renewed Global Approach to Migration and Mobility (GAMM) designed to meet that objective.
