Mobility
Mobility is a key foreign policy priority because it reflects how citizens of the neighbouring countries perceive the European Union. The EU and its neighbours thus have a common interest in ensuring that external borders are not a barrier to trade, social and cultural interchange or regional cooperation. The goal is to facilitate movement of persons whilst maintaining a high level of security.
The impact of ageing and demographic decline, in addition to factors of globalisation and specialisation, means the EU and its neighbours can profit from putting in place mechanisms that allow workers to move from one territory to another. The European Commission proposes facilitation of legitimate short-term travel as well as more ambitious longer-term developments in the area of managed migration, potentially involving the opening of member states’ labour markets when doing so is to the mutual advantage of the sending and receiving countries.
Mobility can only develop in a secure environment. Security improvements help to create the conditions for greater mobility. The position of the ENP is that promotion of mobility is in step with the commitment of neighbourhood countries to increase security and justice, fight illegal migration and strengthen the capacity to deal with migratory flows.
