Human capital and labour immigration to Europe: Retrospective study of policy outcomes of the Blue Card Directive

Abstract: This research paper focuses on the success of policy outcomes of the Directive, by illustratingthe change in the European Union’s (EU) migration statistics after the implementation in2011. This is done by implementing the concepts of knowledge based economy with thetheory of human capital. In the 21st century, the ever growing interconnectedness brings us acompetition of the skills and knowledge between countries when it comes to the labour force.The first remarkable EU directive — the Blue Card Directive — to harmonise and attractmore highly skilled labour into the EU, and its success are explored through a retrospectivepolicy analysis on the directive and its achievements. This study presents as the results thatthis directive is not as successful as the decision-makers intended to be due to its lack ofeffectiveness and the complexity of other overlapping policies within Europe. I argue that theBlue Card Directive failed because of the weak structure of the policy and the low level oninterest for it from the EU member states.