By Steve Peers, Pr. of Law, University of Essex
During his marathon three-hour hearing today in the European Parliament, the designated Commissioner for migration and home affairs, Dimitris Avramopolous, repeatedly stated his adherence to liberal principles. He strongly supported the continuation of the Schengen system, a liberal approach to asylum and legal migration, and freedom of movement for EU citizens. What was lacking was further detail on how his principles would be put into practice, and how the different aspects of EU policy in this area fit together.
Let’s take legal migration first. The would-be Commissioner supported not only a revision of the existing Blue Card rules on highly-skilled migration, but also a more comprehensive overhaul of EU rules on legal migration. Indeed, he explicitly supported an EU system for legal migration resembling the liberal regimes of Canada and Australia.
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