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Migration and Home Affairs

The Talent Partnerships announced in the new Pact on Migration and Asylum will enhance legal pathways to the EU, while engaging partner countries strategically on migration management.

The Talent Partnerships aim to provide a comprehensive policy framework, as well as funding support to boost mutually beneficial international mobility based on better matching of labour market needs and skills between the EU and partner countries. They will be open to students, graduates and skilled workers.

In the Communication on Attracting skills and talent, the Commission announced that it would launch the first Talent Partnerships with North African partners, in particular Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia for their implementation to start by end of 2022.

EU Talent partnerships

How Talent Partnerships work

The Partnerships would provide direct support for partner country nationals mobility to

  • study
  • work or
  • train

in the EU, while relying on close cooperation of authorities, employment agencies, social and economic partners, education and training providers. They will also ensure capacity building assistance to partner countries in areas, such as:

  • labour market or skills intelligence
  • vocational education and training
  • integration of returning migrants
  • diaspora mobilisation

Establishing Talent Partnerships would mark a step towards delivering on the EU’s ambition to build trust and to develop balanced and comprehensive partnerships with partner countries.

Objectives

  • engage with non-EU country partners strategically on migration management
  • create mutually beneficial international partnerships
  • address labour and skills needs between the EU and partner countries

Pilot projects

In the September 2017 Communication on the Delivery of the European Agenda on Migration, the Commission launched the pilot projects on legal migration with the aim to reinforce the role of legal migration channels in the EU's overall cooperation with non-EU countries on migration management, with a particular focus on African countries.

The EU co-funded the pilot projects under the EU Trust Fund for Africa and the Asylum Migration and Integration Fund through the Mobility Partnership Facility.

Documents

Links to pilot projects