Bangladesh has sought amendments to the GSP policy and legalization of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants in Europe.

This matter came up in the joint commission meeting of Bangladesh and the European Union (EU). 

In the meeting, even after LDC graduation, Bangladesh gets GSP benefits in the European market. 

At the same time, the issue of sending the Rohingyas from Myanmar back to their own country through multilateral initiatives has also received special importance in the discussion.

The 11th meeting of the Bangladesh-EU Joint Commission was held on Monday at the NEC meeting room in the capital's Sherebangla Nagar. 

Shahriar Quader Siddiqui, Secretary of the Department of Economic Relations, Ministry of Finance, and Paula Pampaloni, Deputy Managing Director of the EU's Asia and Pacific Division, led the meeting.

According to the sources of the meeting, the EU wants to hire more skilled workers under the Talent Partnership Program. European countries are interested in taking manpower from Bangladesh in about 10 sectors. The government is preparing a roadmap to send skilled manpower legally to the EU countries. If all goes well, the roadmap will be released with mutual consent.

Currently, Germany, Italy, Greece and Romania are interested in taking manpower from Bangladesh. The priority sectors identified in the joint commission meeting are ICT, caregiving, construction, tourism and hospitality, agriculture and agro-processing, shipbuilding and ready-made garments.

The EU announced the Talent Partnership Program in April 2022. Through this, seven countries including Bangladesh have been taken into consideration outside the EU countries, from which the EU countries want to take skilled workers. As such, the opportunity to send Bangladeshis to Europe legally will increase.

Bangladesh-EU discuss in detail the progress of Talent Partnership. On the one hand, Europe wants more skilled workers legally, on the other hand, many Bangladeshis are living in Europe illegally. Bangladesh has also recommended their legalization.

Sources of the meeting also said that Bangladesh has raised some demands to the EU representatives regarding the revision of the GSP policy. One of these is to consider revising the EU's new (draft) GSP scheme, particularly the safeguard clauses. As if all products of Bangladesh, including readymade garments (RMG) products can get GSP plus benefits.

Besides, some GSP policies have been requested to be amended so that Bangladeshi products can enter the European market duty-free. The new EU GSP regime and its safeguard provisions have been called for suspension. It was also discussed that the EU market should not punish Bangladesh's garment sector for the sake of LDC graduation.