Education and Science, EU – Baltic States, Forum, Latvia, Society

The promotion of a new European policy on legal migration to address shortages in specific skills sectors and to attract talent to address some of the demographic challenges facing the EU has been defined as one of priorities in Jean-Claude Juncker’s Political Guidelines for the next European Commission period.

Well-managed migration policies aimed at  attracting highly qualified migrants can also contribute to boosting economic growth and competitiveness,  addressing labour market shortages and offsetting the costs of demographic ageing.

The conference theme will also correspond to one of the priorities defined by the Latvian Presidency of the Council of the European Union – more competitive EU as a basis for growth, improvement of quality of human life and contribution to the development of the future.

Within this broad context, the EMN Conference will focus on the very relevant topic of attracting and retaining highly qualified migrants in Europe.

The aims and objectives of the Conference will be to build on the findings of the EMN Study 2013 on Attracting Highly Qualified and Qualified Third-Country Nationals to the EU and will showcase the findings of the EMN Study 2014 on Admitting Third-Country Nationals for business purposes.

It will aim to provide a global context for the ‘competition for talent’ as well as the practical responses that Member States have developed to ensure that their skills needs can be identified and met.

The Conference conclusions will feed into the development of the new European policy on legal migration and will provide important insights into the implementation of such policies, by highlighting existing good practices and lessons learned from across EU Member States and from wider international experiences. The Conference will also further raise awareness about the work of the EMN and will aim to attract policy makers and practitioners at international, EU and national levels, and will aim to highlight and create synergies across the various levels. The Conference Conclusions will include the main findings from the Conference and will be forwarded to all delegates as a tangible outcome from the Conference, and as a prompt to continue the engagement of a wider audience in the work of the EMN.

A New Start for Europe: My Agenda for Jobs, Growth, Fairness and Democratic Change. Political Guidelines for the next European Commission.

Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on the implementation of Directive 2009/50/EC on the conditions of entry and residence of third-country nationals for the purpose of highly qualified employment.

The moderator of one of the panels: “Panel IV Retaining talent: the importance of the Welcome Culture” is Eugene Eteris, European Studies Faculty, Rīga Stradiņš University, prof. and International editor of Baltic-Course.com.