The European Parliament on Thursday (20 April) voted in favour of starting interinstitutional negotiations on directives for single and long term permits to reside and work in an EU country, to speed up application procedures for third-country nationals.
The directive proposes a single permit that people who are legally in the EU or have been granted international protection can apply for in order to reside and work in an EU country. The directive would limit the processing time to 90 days, and the duration of the single permit would depend on the contract.
The other directive regards a long-term permit, which would allow third-country nationals to apply to a national authority to live and work in the territory for a long-term period after three years of living in the country. Currently, in most member states third-country nationals are eligible to apply for permanent residency after five years of living in a member state.
For the long-term permit, the approval period will be limited to 60 days. If approved, third-country nationals would also be able to move to a second member state for work or study purposes without additional requirements such as labour market checks or integration requirements.
Dependent children will be eligible for the long-term permit if their primary carer already has it.
Under such a scheme, the beneficiaries could also be allowed to be absent from the territory of the EU for up to 24 consecutive months without losing their status.
Going beyond the initial European Commission proposal, the European Parliament added seasonal workers and those who obtained temporary protection as eligible for the single and long-term permits.
The rapporteurs of the two files, Javier Moreno Sánchez (single permit) and Damian Boeselager (long-term permit), told journalists on Wednesday that they expect the legislation to be approved before next Christmas.
Boeselager, however, said approval on the single permit directive is likely to move faster than that of the long-term permit.
Pact on migration and asylum
On the same day, the Parliament voted in favour of starting negotiations on the Pact of Migration and Asylum, a group of files dedicated to the solidarity mechanism on migration, screening procedures for people entering EU territory, and crisis management.
The European Parliament’s negotiating position was already voted on by the civil liberties committee on 28 March, and the April plenary session would have only had to formally start the talks without any votes.
EU to start talks on migration reform laws
Members of the European Parliament of the civil liberties committee adopted their position on key migration files on Tuesday (28 March), inaugurating the beginning of inter-institutional negotiations between the European Parliament and EU ministers.
However, the far-right Identity and Democracy (ID) and the nationalist European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) groups asked the plenary not to go ahead with negotiations but to hold a vote on it on Thursday, in order to oppose it.
“We refuse that these reports regarding the Asylum and Migration Pact be negotiated in a quick and especially discrete way,” MEP Jean-Paul Garraud from the French Rassemblement National (ID) told EURACTIV.
“There is an assumed desire for this package to be adopted, at any price, before the European elections of 2024 and the possible arrival of a new parliamentary majority that could wish to block it.”
Despite their objections, EU lawmakers greenlit all files with a large majority.
[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]
Source: euractiv.com
