EU Legal Migration Policy: Are There Prospects for Progress or Is It at a Standstill?

Abstract

The aim of the article is to attempt to identify the state of, and prospects for, the development of the common policy of the European Union regarding legal migration from third countries. The subject of interest is, above all, legal economic migration, which is crucial from the perspective of certain demographic processes taking place in the EU, the changes and needs of the Community’s labour market, and the challenges posed by the digital transformation. The adopted hypothesis assumes that, within the framework of EU migration and asylum policy, policy as regards legal economic migration is still an underdeveloped area and remains in the hands of individual Member States. Initiatives undertaken in this area remain overshadowed by the main focus of the common migration and asylum policy, namely the development of a common asylum system and the prevention of irregular migration. Policy regarding legal economic migration in the near future will mainly be created by Member States and play out on the domestic stage due to the lack of direct motivation for its development at the Community level. In this case, the strength of particular stakeholders’ interests is not balanced out by any direct and easily identifi able benefits to be gained from the adopted common solutions.