National governments will retain the right to define conditions for work and residence permits for non-EU nationals, despite the introduction of a single EU work permit. 

Interior ministers from the 27 states are expected at their meeting in Luxembourg next Thursday (27 October) to endorse the terms of a compromise worked out with the European Parliament and then to adopt the text formally in December.

The draft law on a single permit for foreigners to live and work in the EU was first proposed in 2007, with the aim of simplifying the procedures for obtaining such permits. However, though it will define minimum rights for permit-holders, the legislation will not create a uniform system. Each state will retain the power to set the conditions under which permits are issued.

Monitoring system

MEPs and national governments reached agreement on the substance of the new rules before the summer, but adoption was held up by a broader dispute between the two sides over correlation tables, which document the national measures through which member states transpose EU law.

Correlation tables make it easier to track whether and how member states implement EU law. MEPs had demanded that the European Commission include such tables in all legislative proposals, but the demand was resisted by national governments. Late last month, MEPs and national diplomats reached a compromise that tables would be included in cases where there was a justification.

Member states’ ambassadors on Tuesday (18 October) were informed that the Parliament’s political group leaders were likely to agree the compromise on the correlation tables today (20 October). This means that a set of tables can be attached to the draft law on a single permit if member states agree to include them.  The agreement makes the directive on a single work permit the first piece of legislation on legal migration to be adopted since the EU’s Lisbon treaty took effect in December 2009.

Two other draft directives – on who qualifies as an asylum-seeker, and on the sexual exploitation of children – are also nearing adoption and will be discussed by justice and home affairs ministers in Luxembourg next week, although no immediate decision is expected.

Justice ministers, on the second day of the Council (28 October), will have a first debate on a set of measures to strengthen victims’ rights, and discuss the rights of suspects or accused persons in criminal proceedings.

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