Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-11-19-Speech-3-165"
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"en.20081119.18.3-165"2
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".
Mr President, Mr Vice-President, the reason why I am speaking today has already been mentioned. This is because Mrs Klamt has had a close family bereavement. We would like to convey our condolences to her.
I would like to start by expressing my gratitude on behalf of the rapporteur for the excellent cooperation in this area. As you know, the report has been produced in close cooperation between the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs of the European Parliament, as part of the process for increasing collaboration. For this reason, I would like to thank the fellow Members who were involved and also the shadow rapporteurs on the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs. The rapporteur would also like to thank in particular the French Presidency, with which she has had close contact over recent months. However, as a Member of the European Parliament, I would like to emphasise once again that it would have been better if the agreement at the level of the ambassadors had taken place after the deliberations in the European Parliament. This would have been a pleasing indication of the close cooperation.
To come to the point, we are in competition with countries throughout the world for highly qualified workers. With a proportion of 1.72% of the total workforce, the European Union is far behind all its competitors. Australia, Canada, the United States and even Switzerland have a higher proportion of highly qualified workers in their workforces. In the competition for the best and cleverest brains, we in the European Union are starting from an unfavourable position. We all know that this question plays a decisive role in our future and in the ability of our national economies to introduce innovation.
Using eight compromise amendments, Ewa Klamt was able to come to an agreement with the other groups in the Parliament on the essential criteria. The report by Ewa Klamt, which was agreed on by the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, contains the main criteria for the admission of highly qualified workers from third countries. The first aspect is the definition of ‘highly qualified workers’ and here it is a question of the wages that are paid. The scope of the directive includes, on the one hand, people who have a higher education qualification and, on the other, people who have comparable professional experience covering a period of at least five years. The Commission had initially proposed three years’ professional experience. The European Parliament has also gone one step further on the salary criterion. The lower salary limit should be 1.7 times the average gross annual wage. The Council has chosen a factor of 1.5. I would therefore like to emphasise that the European Parliament is calling for a higher-level definition of ‘highly qualified workers’.
The next issue is the question of the brain drain, which is an important consideration. How should we approach this challenge? We should not be recruiting highly qualified workers from third countries where they are desperately needed. An application for a Blue Card can be rejected if the brain drain is a genuine problem. However, we must also be honest with ourselves. Although we take the issue of the brain drain seriously, we are competing on a worldwide market and therefore, a time limit on the Blue Card is necessary.
Of course, administrative factors are not the only ones which play an important part in attracting highly qualified workers to Europe. Cultural issues, such as openness to immigration and attracting the best people, are also important. However, we must not disregard the added value which the Blue Card can bring to Europe. For the first time, we have succeeded in creating a standardised admission system covering the whole of Europe. This represents genuine added value.
Tomorrow’s vote is also important for us because we have introduced a special amendment which emphasises Community preference. This means that when European workers who are qualified for a specific job are available, they must be given priority over issuing a Blue Card. We should also emphasise that we were all agreed, and we should make sure that the home countries are informed of this, that although we have standardised the procedure, we do not want to lay down any European quotas. In other words, we do not want to specify what the levels of immigration should be. This must, and should, remain under national control. On behalf of the rapporteur, I would once again like to thank everyone involved. I hope that the result tomorrow will be as good as the result we have already achieved in the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs."@en1
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