After several years of negotiations, an agreement was finally reached by the Council, Parliament and the Commission to adopt the Revised Blue Card Directive.
This Directive will update the rules for the admission conditions of third country high skilled workers into the EU. Some of the changes include more flexible requirements to qualify for an EU Blue Card whereby the salary threshold is being reduced to between 1 and 1.6 times (currently 1.5 times) of the average gross annual salary of a member state, and the minimum duration of employment contract will be reduced to 6 months.
The new system will be more attractive as it aims to bring and retain high skilled workers by also providing access of the Blue Card to family members who could thus also access the EU labour market. The EU Blue Card holders will also be able to move to a second member state just after 1 year of employment in the first member state (down from 18 months). To complement this legislation, the Commission is separately working on a Talent Partnerships tool with non-EU partner countries to help match labour needs in the EU considering the demand for high skill workers.
More information is available on: EU Blue Card: new rules for highly skilled migrant workers (europa.eu)
This update was brought to you by the Malta Business Bureau Brussels office. For more information infobrussels@mbb.org.mt