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INTERVIEW: Why it must be made easier for non-EU citizens to move around Europe

The European Union needs to urgently allow non-EU citizens to be able to move more freely to another EU country, the MEP leading the talks on changes to residency laws says. He tells Claudia Delpero why current rules mean Europe is losing out to the US.

Published: 8 June 2023 11:52 CEST
Updated: 8 June 2023 14:20 CEST

INTERVIEW: Why it must be made easier for non-EU citizens to move around Europe

‘We must make it easier for non-EU citizens to move around Europe’, says MEP (Photo by JOHN THYS / AFP)

“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.

“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.

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Could Germany's dual nationality law be reversed?

In an article assessing Germany’s latest migration figures this week, Die Zeit raised a pertinent question: “What is actually out of control here,” asked journalist Mark Schieritz. “The migration, or the debate?”

While the number of asylum applications has been sinking dramatically this year – along with the number of so-called economic migrants – the discussion around migration has been building to a fever pitch.

In response to huge gains by the far-right AfD in both EU and eastern state elections, the government immediately sprung into action, extending controversial checks along all nine of Germany’s foreign borders.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) declared his intention to carry out “deportations on a grand scale” as mainstream parties met for a migration summit that quickly collapsed in disagreement.

At the same time, anti-migrant rhetoric has been ramping up, causing Deutschlandfunk to draw parallels with the early 1990s, when Germany saw a spate attacks against both refugees and foreigners who had been settled in the country for decades.

All of this feels very far removed from the Germany that has been desperate to court skilled foreigner workers over the past year, and that has fought to overturn a decades-long ban on dual nationality – which finally happened in June.

But it has caused some to wonder if the tide could be shifting, and if hard-won rights like dual nationality could be set to go out of the window. Here’s where things stand at present.

Threats from the CDU

The biggest threat to the dual nationality law arguably comes from the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU) parties, who are long-standing opponents of the bill.

Shortly after the new citizenship law entered into force back in June, immigration spokesperson Alexander Throm told DPA that the parties intended to scrap it.

“The CDU and CSU will reverse this unsuccessful reform,” he said. “Dual citizenship must remain the exception and be limited to countries that share our values.”

CDU politician Alexander Throm speaks in a debate in the German Bundestag

CDU politician Alexander Throm speaks in a debate in the German Bundestag. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Christoph Soeder

But is this all hot air from a party that has vehemently campaigned against dual nationality for years on end? In the opinion of most political experts, the answer is yes.

“The CDU’s announcement that they would abolish the authorisation of dual citizenship is a desperate attempt to react to the growth of the AfD,” Nils Diederich, a political scientist at Berlin’s Free University, told The Local.

However, the party is unlikely to have the numbers in parliament to do so – even if they win the next election.

That’s because Germany’s system tends to rely on coalition governments, and every single one of the CDU and CSU’s viable coalition partners – the Greens, the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Free Democrats (FDP) – supports dual nationality.

This was backed up by Greens immigration expert Filiz Polat, who told The Local: “The CDU/CSU is completely isolated with its announcement that it will revoke the citizenship law in the event of a change of government.”

Furthermore, the CDU and CSU are highly unlikely to ever have the numbers in the Bundesrat to change the law. The upper house of parliament is comprised of state coalition governments that all need to agree in order to vote in favour of legislation.

With the exception of Bavaria, where the CSU governs alongside the Free Voters, or Freier Wähler, party, every single state coalition the CDU is part of involves some combination of of the Greens, SPD and FDP. As the parties who worked on and ultimately passed this law, they are unlikely to agree to overturn it.

What about the far-right AfD?

Many foreigners in Germany are understandably worried about the rise of the extremist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, who seem to be going from strength to strength lately.

In Bundestag debates on the new citizenship law, the AfD spoke out vehemently against the changes – a stance that is reiterated in the party’s Grundsatzprogramm, or key policy programme.

“The AfD rejects the ‘double passport’, i.e. the acquisition of German citizenship with the simultaneous continuation or acquisition of another citizenship,” the party writes. “Although this does not rule out well-founded special cases.”

In addition, they say, the requirements for naturalisation must be significantly increased.

A car drives past a billboard displaying an election campaign poster for Alternative for Germany (AfD) with the lettering 'The east is doing it - class in German' in Altenburg, eastern Germany on August 20th

A car drives past a billboard displaying an election campaign poster for Alternative for Germany (AfD) with the lettering ‘The east is doing it – class in German’ in Altenburg, eastern Germany on August 20th. Photo by JENS SCHLUETER / AFP

In spite of their recent successes in eastern states, however, the far-right party is still a long way away from seizing power in Germany on a national level (or even at the state level).

That’s primarily because all the major parties – including the CDU – have what’s known as a Brandmauer, or firewall, in place, that prevents them from formally cooperating with the AfD.

So, even if the CDU and CSU parties technically have the numbers to enter a coalition with the AfD after next year’s federal elections, the party’s constitution explicitly forbids them from doing so.

Any informal agreement – such as a pact to overturn the dual nationality law, for example – would also be politically toxic, and would almost inevitably split the party.

Where does the government stand?

Currently, the so-called traffic light coalition of the SPD, Greens and FDP – named after the parties’ three colours – is engaged in something of a balancing act.

While the rhetoric around migration has taken on a much more combative tone, the coalition has set a clear dividing line between legal skilled migration and uncontrolled, irregular migration.

In a fiery speech in the Bundestag on September 11th, Scholz emphasised Germany’s desperate need for migration to combat current labour shortages.

“There is no country in the world with a shrinking labour force that has economic growth,” he said. “That is the truth that we are confronted with.”

The chancellor also noted that Germany’s constitution mandates the protection of people who face danger and persecution. In other words: asylum seekers.

“Openness to the world is therefore necessary,” he explained. “But cosmopolitanism does not mean that anyone who wants to can come. We must be able to choose who comes to Germany.”

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz Bundestag

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) gives an impassioned speech during the general debate on the budget on September 11th, 2024. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Kay Nietfeld

According to political scientist Diederich, this cuts to the heart of the current issue.

“The authorisation of multiple citizenship has little to do with unregulated immigration,” he told The Local. “Naturalisation is granted to people who have been living legally in Germany for several years and who have successfully integrated into German society.”

On the other hand, Diederich said, the fear of “foreign infiltration” through unchecked, irregular and unwanted migration is being fuelled for political purposes.

“It’s not only the AfD doing this,” he added.

At present, the government seems laser-focused on dividing their pro-migration policies – like the recent skilled worker law and citizenship reform – from the need to quell irregular migration.

For foreigners here legally, this means that routes to German citizenship – and indeed, dual nationality – are set to remain in place for the forseeable future.

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