Ladies and gentlemen,
I would like to warmly welcome you to the “First European Dialogue on Skills and Migration”.
Today is an opportunity to discuss, not just about the challenges but also the opportunities of migration, including the ongoing refugee crisis.
Too often, those who deal with the immediate consequences of migration are forgotten: our labour markets, and our social and economic actors.
With the European Dialogue on Skills and Migration, the Commission wants to strengthen not just the dialogue but also the collaboration with the private sector and business.
Managing the refugee crisis is not just the task of governments.
There is a role for the private sector too in helping out concretely with the immediate needs of reception and housing, but also language training and labour market integration.
I would like to take this opportunity to call on businesses, companies and employers to step up, and join forces with national and local governments, with civil society, with schools, to turn the challenges of the refugee crisis into opportunities.
Successful integration of those who have a right to stay – either recently arrived or already residing in our communities – is crucial for the overall prosperity of our societies.
Making sure that those who have recently arrived can find their place in our labour markets is essential – both for them, but also for the receiving societies.
We also have to bear in mind that, while taking account of the large number of recently arrived refugees, Europe is an ageing continent and its working age population is steadily declining.
In fact, without migration, the EU’s population would decline by 18 million or 5% already in the next decade.
We will also be lacking the needed skills in Europe. This means 2 things:
We need to further develop and improve the skills of people already in the EU, both EU and non-EU citizens.
But we also need effective migration policies to attract the skills we lack in Europe.
Making use of, and further developing the skills we already have, means that we need to ensure solid training and bridging programmes, and better recognition of skills for those who are either lacking skills or have acquired them abroad.
But we also have to boost Europe’s competitiveness on a global scale and make the EU more attractive to talents and skilled workers from third countries.
Moreover, the sense of creativity and initiative that migrants can bring must be unleashed to its full potential.
Promoting entrepreneurship among migrants – and also attract innovative talents from abroad – is also crucial, and I am happy this is one of the topics of this morning’s discussions.
In fact, the idea of start-up visas was discussed yesterday in Amsterdam during the Competitiveness Council, together with my colleague Carlos Moedas.
The Commission is analysing how innovative entrepreneurs who are willing to move to Europe, could be granted assistance and possibly a residence and work permit.
We are currently working across different services in the Commission, to present further actions on this, later this year.
At the same time, we are preparing a comprehensive package on legal migration and integration for this Spring, which will also include a revision of the Blue Card and an Action Plan on Integration.
Managing migration better is a priority that the Commission has mainstreamed across all its services – now is the time to mainstream it across stakeholders.
On all of these issues, we want to hear your ideas, as they will be important food for thought for these initiatives that we are preparing.
I want today’s event to be an open dialogue.
An open dialogue where everybody brings forward his or her ideas to make migration less of a problem to be tackled, and more a well-managed resource, both for migrants and for a continent facing a severe demographic decline and skills shortages.
Yesterday, I already launched this dialogue in a closed roundtable format with a number of high-level business, social and institutional partners.
I am very happy to say that the feedback I received is that we are all engaged to open a direct and cross-sector dialogue.
Me and my services are here today to listen, to be inspired, and to be encouraged.
Most importantly, we don’t just want to discuss – we also want to turn ideas into actions where possible.
I am therefore counting on you and on your full support to engage in an active and inspiring discussion – and not just this morning, but also to continue for the future.
I repeat my call to the private and business sector to engage with us in managing the refugee crisis and migration more generally.
I thank you for your attention and I wish you a very productive discussion.