Freer intra-EU shifts for foreign professionals

When Mahesh Krishnamoorthy, an information technology professional from Chennai, was offered a job with Hewlett Packard to work in Brussels on creating a payroll engine for the Federal Police of Belgium, he was thrilled.

His euphoria was short-lived. Despite kosher paper work, he found it impossible to get a visa for his wife, whom he had married only a week before leaving for Europe, to join him. Nine months later, he quit and returned to India.

Faced with sluggish economic growth and shrinking demographics, Mahesh’s story is an example of what many believe the European Union (EU) needs to prevent if it is to gain the flexibility needed to remain globally competitive. Highly qualified foreign workers make up only 1.7 per cent of the employed population within the EU, but the equivalent figure is nearly 10 per cent for Australia, over seven per cent in Canada and 3.2 per cent in the US.

One reason for this discrepancy, says Ameet Nivsarkar, vice- president of India’s software industry organisation, Nasscom, is that while the EU has integrated into a single market when it comes to goods, this isn’t so for services. “It’s impossible to separate the service provided from the person who provides the service, so this person needs to be able to move across borders as and when required, but in the EU this is a problem,” he says.

If, for example, an Indian software company wins a contract with a big German firm with plants or dealerships across the continent, its non-EU employees in Germany will not easily be able to travel to where they are needed. “Usually, if that person working in Germany needs to go to Italy, he’ll have to first return to India and get a new work permit for Italy,” explains Nivsarkar. Describing the process as both resource and time consuming, he says the lack of consistency between the visa/work permit criteria of the 27 EU member-states is a hurdle Brussels needs to address. “In the Czech Republic, it takes 16 weeks (to get a visa); in Germany, six weeks. It makes it very difficult for a company.”

Some change
The good news is that Nasscom’s pleas have found a receptive ear in Brussels, where the European Commission has recently proposed a new directive on “intra corporate transferees” (ICTs). Once in force, the EC claims the directive will make the lives of non-EU nationals employed by multinational corporations in Europe, a lot easier. The directive is currently pending discussion within the European Council and Parliament. If approved, it could be put into force by next year.

Michele Cercone, spokesperson for the EC’s home affairs directorate, says the ICT directive will have a three-fold benefit. To begin, the rules for a combined visa and work permit application will be standardised across the 27 member- states, guaranteeing a maximum 30-day application processing time.

Once the ICT in question is in Europe, the directive would allow her to carry out part of her assignment “in an entity of the same group located in another EU member state, on the basis of the first residence permit”. In other words, an Indian working for an MNC in Germany would be able, if necessary, to move to that company’s Italian branch office without having to apply for a fresh work permit or visa.

The ICT directive would also do away with the type of problems faced by Mahesh in Belgium. It thus provides for immediate family reunification of the spouse and the minor children of the ICT in the first country of residence.

However, the directive leaves it up to individual member-states to decide whether or not to grant spouses work permits. More problematically, member-states retain the right to impose immigration quotas. Nonetheless, Nasscom hails the proposal as “forward looking.”