The blue card proposal was presented at a press conference in Strasbourg on the 23rd of October, 2007, by the President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso and Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security Franco Frattini. Barroso motivated the proposal with the EU’s future lack of labour and skills, the difficulty for third country workers to move between different member states for work purposes, the conflicting admission procedures for the 27 different member states, and the "rights gap" between EU citizens and legal immigrants. The proposal was presented along with another proposal, COM(2007)638, which includes a simplified application procedure and a common set of rights for legal third-country workers.
Shortly after the proposal was presented, it received heavy criticism. South African Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang pointed to the fact that several African countries already suffer from the migration of skilled health workers and said that this proposal might worsen the situation. Moroccan international economic law professor Tajeddine El Husseini went further, saying that this "is a new form of colonisation, of discrimination, and it will be very hard to find support for it among southern countries".
On 20 November 2008 the European Parliament backed the introduction of the blue card while recommending some safeguards against the brain drain and greater flexibility for EU Member States.
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