Temporary Migration

The temporary movement of persons for the delivery of services (Mode IV) was negotiated at the Uruguay Round as part of the GATS. It served primarily to facilitate exploratory business visits and the movement of high-level personnel within multinational corporations. Developing countries are now pushing for greater openness.

Though Mode IV negotiations in the GATS might succeed for the highly skilled, negotiations are likely to be bilateral for the less skilled, or regional at best (as between the EU and Eastern European accession countries, between the EU and Morocco – though with fewer commitments than with Eastern European countries, and as suggested in a forthcoming paper from Sub-Saharan Africa on EPA negotiations between the EU and the ACP countries). 

L. A. Winters estimated the mutual benefits stemming from the liberalization of the temporary movements of natural persons from developing to industrial countries, and found these to be very large. These estimates will be updated based on newly collected data on bilateral migration flows.

Mode IV is just one component of the temporary movement of persons and part of the broader question of temporary versus permanent migration. Permanent migration has led to tensions in various destination countries (cultural, labor market and fiscal-public services aspects) and the temporary movement of persons might help relax some of these.

Manole and Schiff  have provided a survey of temporary migration policies. Schiff  is examining the types of measures that might help reduce the extent of overstaying by temporary migrants and thus make the policy more attractive to destination countries.

Switzerland has had rather unique policies vis-à-vis temporary and permanent migration for a long time, with stronger control (e.g., with less overstaying by temporary migrants). A descriptive study of these policies is being undertaken, with a detailed analysis of immigration from Serbia and Montenegro.