Policy brief

Welcome to Europe

Publishing date
01 April 2006

Bruegel Fellow Jakob von Weizsäcker argues that Europe needs more high-skilled migration and the debate on low-skilled migration should not be an excuse to slow this process down. Rather, the EU should use a couple of tools to encourage high-skilled migration: a skill-based points system with a ’Blue Card" granting access to its entire labour market and a ’Blue Diploma" for students graduating with a Masters degree (or equivalent) from selected universities to allow them access to the entire EU labour market. In order to manage migration from the new member states he recommends an ’External Minimum Wage".

About the authors

  • Jakob von Weizsäcker

    Jakob von Weizsäcker heads the department for economic policy and tourism at the Thuringian Economics Ministry in Erfurt and is a non-resident fellow at Bruegel where he was resident fellow form 2005 to 2010.

    He previously worked at the World Bank in Washington (2002-2005) where he was country economist for Tajikistan and the Federal Economics Ministry in Berlin (2001-2002) where he headed the office of a junior minister. Before that, he worked for Vesta, a venture capital firm, and held research positions at the Center for Economic Studies in Munich and CIRED in Paris.

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