EU member states position on long-term permits directive falls short, MEP says

EU member states’ position on the long-term residents directive is ‘far less ambitious’ than the European Parliament’s position, indicating tough negotiations ahead, MEP Damian Boeselager, who will be Parliament’s lead negotiator on the proposal, warned in an interview with Euractiv.

The directive aims to set up EU-wide minimum standards for third-country nationals who apply for living and working permits in the territory of an EU country.

The EU already has a directive regulating the status of long-term residents, approved in the early 2000s. However, the EU institutions decided to update the provisions on the file to make “a more effective, coherent, and fair system of acquiring long-term EU resident status,” the Commission explained on its website.

“This system should be a key tool to promote the integration of nationals of non-EU countries who settled legally and on a long-term basis in the EU,” the EU executive said.

However, Boeselager, a German lawmaker from Volt Europa, said there was “quite a gap between the interior ministers [of the EU27] and the European Parliament,” referring to the position adopted by the EU countries on 23 November.

“The European Parliament sees talent as crucial for EU competitiveness and economic prosperity. We believe we need to increase the right to intra-EU mobility and the possibility to cumulate years of stay across different EU countries. The interior ministers seem so far less ambitious,” the German MEP explained.

The European Commission tabled the proposal in April 2022 and afterwards, the two ‘co-legislators’ (the Council of the EU and the European Parliament) started their legislative work to adopt their respective position on the file, before a joint negotiation on its final shape. 

The Parliament adopted its proposal in April 2023, approving a position that would radically facilitate the application of third-country nationals to get permanent residence and the right to work, as well as moving from one country to another.

For instance, in most member states, third-country nationals are eligible to apply for permanent residency after five years of living in a member state. The Parliament proposed to lower the bar to three years, however, EU member states want to keep the minimum time frame at five years.

More limits are also set regarding the possibility of cumulating years of residency while staying in another member state.

According to the position of member states, “third country nationals can cumulate residence periods of up to two years in other member states to meet the requirements of the five-year residence period” a press release on the matter explained.

However, for these cases, the Council would accept “only certain types of legal residence permits, such as holders of EU Blue Cards or residence permits issued for the purpose of highly qualified employment”.

On intra-mobility movements, the European Parliament approved the possibility for those who were granted the status to move to a second member state for work or study purposes without additional requirements such as labour market checks or integration requirements.

EU ministers instead decided that “this right to intra-EU mobility is not an automatic right but is subject to a number of conditions” such as each member state’s assessment of the “situation of their national labour markets”.

“I do not expect the negotiations to be easy, but I will put the work in to find compromises that help Europe win the race for international talent,” Boeselager concluded.

[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]

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