By Samuel Ballin (samuel.ballin@ru.nl) and Sandra Mantu (sandra.mantu@ru.nl)
On Friday 28 November 2025, the Centre for Migration Law hosted a seminar on the Recast Blue Card directive. Presented as a tool to boost the EU’s attractiveness for highly skilled migrants, the recast directive is yet to fully achieve its potential. While tensions concerning state sovereignty over national labour markets have shaped both the directive and its implementation, there are positive developments concerning migrants’ rights. The seminar explored these issues by gathering diverse viewpoints from EU institutions, legal practitioners, and academics across various EU states. It identified several important issues in the implementation of the new directive across the EU. A few key issues includes lack of clarity and consistency in the implementation of the Blue Card across the EU, its continued underuse in most Member States, and a lack of effective intra-EU mobility.
The morning programme focused on the negotiation process of the recast directive, which was influenced by the 2015 ‘migration crisis’ and the UK’s withdrawal that led to a change of rapporteur. The recast’s negotiation went in parallel with the negotiation of the New Pact. This was seen as necessary to achieve desired outcomes, such as improving the rights of Blue Card holders and their family members. The recasts’ final text reflects anxieties about the loss of sovereignty over national labour markets, which continues to be the dominant paradigm for Member States. It includes compromises on issues such as harmonization and the continuation of parallel national schemes for highly-qualified workers, which continues to undermine the ‘added value’ of EU law and the attractiveness of the Blue Card for employers.
During the second panel, academics and practitioners discussed issues of procedural justice, such as what is (not) included in the 90-day time limit set by the directive to assess applications. Other relevant issues are the absence of information as to what constitutes an ‘allowed business activity’ for intra-EU mobility, and the (limits to) the right of circular mobility outside the EU. The presenters suggested that progress may be declining or plateauing due to the political climate around migration and described a tension between this shrinking political space and the growing need/demand for highly-qualified migrant workers. There was discussion of the different priorities given to the Blue Card and labour migration compared to asylum and irregular migration under the Pact, as well as the questionable added value of the Talent Partnerships and the EU Talent Pool. Practitioners noted the value of improved rights for workers, but stressed that employers’ priorities remain speed, cost, and predictability. Challenges include uneven salary thresholds between and within Member States (e.g. for recent graduates), which are usually still higher than for national permits, and the fact that employers are generally more comfortable and familiar with longer-standing national permits than with the recast Blue Card.
The afternoon programme focused on Member State perspectives. Recurrent issues included underuse of the directive and the continued proliferation of national highly-qualified migrant worker schemes, as well as alternative permits such as those for digital nomads or shortage occupations. In some countries these schemes continue to be given (seemingly) unfair advantages or preferential treatment, for example through differing levels of digitalisation and the accessibility of information and application procedures. Further issues concern delays and the duration of application procedures, in part related to underuse and national authorities’ unfamiliarity with the directive. There were also differences in the roles or ownership of workers, employers, and/or third-party agencies over the application process itself. Some rights, notably including intra-EU mobility, appeared to be underused. This has direct implications for migrant workers themselves, as well as further affecting the attractiveness of the Blue Card for employers vis-à-vis parallel national permits.
For more information on the contributions to this seminar, please see our forthcoming edited volume.