João Peixoto

Migration and Policies in the European Union: Highly Skilled Mobility, Free Movement of Labour and Recognition of Diplomas†

This article evaluates the relationship between highly skilled mobility (especially by individuals with university-level degrees) and migration policies. Data from the European Union (EU) and Portugal (in particular) provide the empirical basis of the research. EU policies regarding the free circulation of individuals which aim to build the common market for economic factors (including labor) are reviewed as are the more specific recognition of diplomas policies for professional and academic purposes and recent levels of international mobility in both the EU and Portugal. The article also enumerates the main obstacles that from a political and legal or social and cultural perspective explain the low mobility revealed by those figures. Obstacles include the broad denial of citizenship rights; the necessity of assuring a means of sustenance; linguistic and technical exigencies for diploma recognition; the social attributes of work (more explicit in the service sector); and the institutional nature of national skilled labor markets. The main exception to the low mobility rule--movements of cadres in the internal labor markets of transnational corporations--together with flows in other multinational organizations are also reviewed. In these migrations are relatively exempt from political constraints and significantly avoid the recognition procedures adopted by the EU. In other words it seems that the entry of highly skilled individuals in a transnational corporation and not their citizenship in a Europe without frontiers is what enables them to achieve effective mobility. (authors)

Immigration Policies in Portugal: Limits and Compromise in the Quest for Regulation

The main objective of this article is to describe the key elements of the making of immigration control policies in Portugal until 2007. First, the main policy initiatives and measures concerning the admission of foreigners are presented. Second, the mechanisms and difficulties surrounding the issue of immigration control are discussed, and a tension is identified between the structural demand for foreign labour and the measures taken for control. Third, the positions of the main political parties and of the most relevant stakeholders are highlighted. The evidence indicates that despite continued attempts to control immigration, the stated policy objectives are at odds with the outcome, characterised by endemic irregular migration. The factors hindering regulation are both internal and external, encompassing the economic, social, institutional and legal domains. Given the limits to control, policy-makers have sought to achieve a compromise by enacting frequent regularization programmes while seeking to improve admission and control. In this process, the main political parties have exhibited a significant degree of consensus, which may be partially accounted for by the convergence among the other stakeholders (employers, trade unions, Catholic organisations and immigrants associations) and by the increasing, albeit contradictory, acceptance of immigration by public opinion.