The Recast EU Blue Card Directive: Towards a Level Playing Field to Attract Highly Qualified Migrant Talent to Work in the EU?


This article discusses the recast Blue Card Directive (BCD) on the admission of highly qualified non-EU migrant workers. The recast Directive aims to facilitate employers in their demand of non-EU talent and enhances migrant workers’ rights. As this article demonstrates, challenges remain in view of the prerogative of Member States to maintain national schemes and benefit from wide discretion. We conclude that if Member States implement the recast restrictively, the recast BCD could be an example of ‘failing forward’, a next step in a continuous process failing to achieve the Commissions’ ambitions of harmonizing EU migration law. Yet, by engaging in a novel legislative approach which we coin ‘encapsulating harmonisation’ of EU and national migration law, the Commission manages to enhance the level playing field aimed for, especially on improving migrant workers’ rights. Whether the Recast BCD will indeed attract more highly qualified migrants to work in the EU, however, will depend on Member States’ implementation and their use of the discretion afforded by the BCD.