Enhancing EU Inclusive Growth: Strategies for Attracting Highly Skilled Workforce and Talents

This event will explore the challenges and opportunities offered by current EU legislative frameworks and policies bolstering EU economies by way of recruiting and exchanging Non-EU and EU highly skilled workforce, professionals and talents.

The CEIPA video conference will take place on:
Thursday October 17, 2024
From 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM (CET)
 
The event will be hosted on a secure Zoom platform, and registered participants will receive a direct link to join the session.

Enhancing EU Inclusive Growth: Strategies for Attracting Highly Skilled workforce and talents

The mobility and exchange of talents on international level is a complex issue. It is not just about economic growth and global competiveness, but also human beings whose knowledge and personal engagement we need to merit.

As long as EU governments and the EU institutions do not fully take into account the entire scale of human factors involved, no successful talent mobility scheme can ever be executed. The prospective employers and the EU governments offering visa residence permits jobs and professional careers, as well as the recruited talents and professionals, all share a stake in this complex operation and should benefit from it on equal terms.

After all, the highly qualified and talented individuals recruited to certain sectors of EU economies are human beings with their own particular cultural backgrounds, needs and expectations, rather than mechanical entities or goods. The mobility, selection, recruitment and placement of  highly qualified, professionals and talents should never be regarded as simple relocation acts.

The event will explore the challenges and opportunities offered by current EU legislative frameworks and policies bolstering EU economies by way of recruiting and exchanging Non-EU and EU highly skilled workforce, professionals and talents. 

Discussion will address key issues such as labor market needs, the for EU enterprises and academic institutions attracting and placing highly qualified individuals and talents. By examining both the barriers and advantages of skilled mobility, the event aims to provide strategies for enhancing EU and global competitiveness(and fostering inclusive growth).

Participants of this event will include policymakers, government officials, private sector, NGOs, researchers, and journalists.

The following key issues will be at the centre of this event: 

  • The challenges of free movement of highly qualified professionals amid restrictive migration policies in EU Member States;
  • Current EU legislative frameworks, schemes and programmes such as the blue card, sponsored visas by European enterprises, CETA, skills and talent mobility package, Horizon, Erasmus and other schemes to bust mobility for non-EU and EUh ighly qualified workforce and talents.
  • The challenges the EU faces when implementing its policies regarding the mobility of international talents and professional workforces.
  • How to balance the shortage of highly skilled labour force in science, technology, information technology, construction sector, etc. in industrial countries, against a reduction of poverty and brain drain in the developing world.
  • Ways to streamline and simplify digital job applications, visas, and work permits for EU companies and academia

During the debate the result of a recent study made in the USA on mobility of Chinese students will  be presented. It will shed some light on the global challenges schemes boosting mobility of talents may face today.

Organised by the Centre for European and International Policy Action (CEIPA), this inter-disciplinary event will discuss policy reforms tabled by the European Green Deal initiative. Subsequently, this event will aim at identifying and discussing the main issues and challenges in making the European Green Deal initiative a reality and success.

Will Europe be ready and willing to mobilise substantial political support and resources for far reaching reform, creating synergies between energy, agricultural, environmental, consumer protection and labour market policies, given that it is preparing for a major economic set back in the aftermath of the Coronavirus pandemic and still coping with the final stages of Brexit negotiations?

Will governments in the member states of the European Union show enough resilience and determination towards consequent reforms of the common agricultural policy and take effective steps to protect, monitor and restore forests, natural habitat and biodiversity?

Will they commit themselves to large scale and continual allocation of resources and investments for the production of renewable energies such as hydrogen, solar, wind, etc., making Europe competitive and prosperous?

Will society and the political elite in Europe give up a little of their national egoism and stand for a long-term transition, gradually closing the doors for polluting fossil fuels and paving the way for a continent free of greenhouse gas emissions?

The CEIPA video conference will bring together policy makers, researchers, government and EU representatives, civil society, press and media, international organisations and public administrators.

The working language will be English.

To register to attend the conference, please click here to be taken to the Zoom registration page.

We look forward to your participation at this event,

Peter von Bethlenfalvy
Executive Director
CEIPA


AGENDA

Opening and welcome address: 

Ambassador (Hon.) Denise De Hauwere, President of CEIPA

Introductory Words:

Giles Merritt, Founding Member of Friends of Europe, Senior Associate Fellow of the Egmont Institute, Author of the book “People Power: Why We Need More Migrants”

 Speakers and panelists in alphabetical order  (see bio’s here)

Ambassador Regine De Clercq, former Director of Asylum, Migration and Anti Trafficking Department of the Foreign Ministry in Belgium, Chair and Founding Executive Director of GFMD-Belgium, Belgium, Italy

Neli Esipova, Researcher, CEO and founding member of Multicultural Insights (MI)

Elisabeth Kamm, Senior Immigration Consultant on Fragomen’s Consulting Europe Team, France/Belgium

Vassilis Kerasiotis, leading lawyer on migration and labour laws, Athens, Greece

Margit Kreuzhuber, M.A. Director of the Government of Austria’s WORK in AUSTRIA, Austrian Business Agency, Vienna

Organisation and technical coordination:

Dominique Foubert, Treasurer CEIPA

Heather Fermor, Senior Policy Adviser CEIPA

Silvia Lamonaca Senior Policy Adviser CEIPA

Iosip Dascalu Special Counselor CEIPA, formerly EC Brussels

Moderation:

Peter von Bethlenfalvy CEIPA

Strategies for Attracting Highly Skilled Workforce and Talents – short biography of the panelists


Further Reading and Information

Information on the EU Blue Card

Regulation Establishing an EU Talent Pool

OECD Policy Paper – Engaging with Employers in Skills Mobility Partnerships 

The Council of the EU agrees its position on the proposal for an EU Talent Pool

The European Commission presents a Skills and Talent Mobility package to make the EU more attractive to talent from outside the EU

ILO’s International Legal Framework on Labour Migration

Information on ETIAS and the rules of travel in Europe 

Information regarding the EU Blue Card

People Power: Why We Need More Migrants, by Giles Merritt

Download (PDF, 877KB)