“Even under Donald Trump, the US was more attractive for international talent than the EU is,” says Damian Boeselager, a German Member of the European Parliament (MEP).

Boeselager, a member of the Greens/European Free Alliance group is leading the campaign at the European parliament to bring about a rule change that would effectively make it easier for non-EU citizens to move to another EU country.

“The EU has a huge benefit of a large labour market having freedom of movement for EU citizens,” he says.

“But the truth is that Europe needs labour migration in all areas and all skill levels and therefore, if we want to be more attractive, we should make it easier (for non-EU citizens) to move from one member state to the next.

“If you are fired in New York, you can move to San Francisco and Miami. So… if third-country nationals choose to relocate to Europe, they should have a similar freedom, they should see a single market and not 27 ones,” he said.

The European Parliament recently voted to simplify rules for non-EU nationals to allow them to acquire EU long-term residence status and make it easier to move to other EU countries.

Under a little known EU-law third-country nationals can in theory acquire EU-wide long-term residence if they have lived ‘legally’ in an EU country for at least five years. 

They also must not have been away for more than 6 consecutive months and 10 months over the entire period (the rules are different for Brits covered by Withdrawal agreement). In addition, they have to prove to have “stable and regular economic resources”, health insurance and can be required to meet “integration conditions”, such as passing a test on the national language or culture.

The status, which was created to “facilitate the integration” of non-EU citizens who have been living in the EU for a long time, ensures equal treatment in the country that grants it and, on paper, some free movement rights.

However in practice, this law has not worked as planned. 

Specific rules on residency are applied in each EU country. Most countries require employers to prove they could not find candidates in the local market before granting a permit to a non-EU citizen, regardless of their status. And as well as that most applicants are simply unaware the EU status exists and the rights that come with it.

Free movement for third country nationals is just “an illusion,” says Boeselager.

READ ALSO: What is the EU’s plan to make freedom of movement easier for non-EU nationals?

“The EU does not give out a status. It is always the national governments which have the competence to give out visas or grant asylum, and even the EU long-term residence status is not an EU status, it is a national status regulated under EU law,” Boeselager says.

The MEP says that the European parliament will not change this, but that it will seek to get closer to freedom of movement by adjusting the criteria for applications “so that can you have the long-term residence status in the second member state immediately if you already have it in the first.”

“So, if you get the German card of EU long-term residence, which is basically a German visa, you could go to France and say ‘I have already fulfilled the requirements under the EU long-term residence in Germany, please give me the status in France immediately’… I call it portability of status,” he says.

A change to the rules would benefit UK citizens who lost free movement rights in the EU due to Brexit.

“The fact that the British could potentially benefit from this makes me super happy, but in the end the law is nationality-blind and all third country nationals will benefit and I am super convinced this is the right thing to do,” Boeselager said.

Resistance from EU governments

The European Parliament also want to bring about another change that would make it easier for third-country nationals to move to another EU country.

MEPs recently decided the period of legal residence to obtain EU long-term residence should be cut from five to three years and that it should be possible to combine periods of legal residence in different EU member states, instead of resetting the clock at each move.

Time spent for studying or vocational training, seasonal work, temporary protection (the scheme that applies to Ukrainian refugees), which currently does not count, should be included in the calculation too.

All these rules will have to be agreed by the EU Council, which brings together representatives of EU governments.

And getting all EU member states to agree to the changes being put forward by Boeselager and fellow MEPs may prove difficult.

According to a recent questionnaire circulated by Sweden, the current holder of the EU Presidency, several of the EU parliament’s proposals, including the possibility to cumulate periods of residence in different member states, are viewed negatively by certain member states due to difficulties to check continuous stays and absences.

“The issue with member states is that they don’t trust each other, at least when it comes to the processing of documents,” Boeselager says.

“The second point is that on the Council side we negotiate with the ministries of home affairs, the interior ministries. But this is not necessarily an interior ministry decision but rather an economics decision… and we might be losing out because of this focus on control and fraud that ministries of interior have, whereas we should focus on how the EU attracts talent,” he says.

Boeselager warns that “nine out of 10 companies across Europe tell us they lack labour and over the next 30 years we will lose 60 million people from our workforce.”

EU ministers will have to come up with their common position, possibly by the end of June. Then there will be talks with the parliament. Boeselager hopes interior ministers “would not block too much” and the new law will be adopted before the European parliament elections of June 2024

If that doesn’t happen negotiations and discussions will have to continue into the next legislative period and therefor face a long delay.

“What’s important is that we start having a normal discussion about migration. Migration is such a toxic topic for so many, but the reality is that we do not have endless time to figure out how to become a more competitive and attractive Union and it’s important we get there, so we just need to make a better offer,” Boeselager said.

This article was produced in collaboration with Europe Street news.