The federal employees relocation program provides for a transition period, for speedy market entry.

The Commission suggests a common special procedure to speed the admission of immigrants covered by the proposed highly skilled workers directive.

An agreement on the establishment of a fast-track admission procedure allowing residence permits or visas to be issued in the name of the third-country national concerned may be concluded between the authority of a Member State with responsibility for the entry and residence of students or school pupils who are third-country nationals and an establishment of higher education or an organisation operating pupil exchange schemes which has been recognised for this purpose by the Member State concerned in accordance with its national legislation or administrative practice.

There has been a massive ramp-up in the last several years, particularly the last three.

Being fully aware of the objectives and requirements of the CAP, the Commission proposes to take the following additional measures: - for all agricultural imports from associated countries the tariffs should be reduced to the final level as bound in GATT. This would mean an accelerated implementation of the Uruguay Round commitments for the associated countries; - the tariff quotas should be significantly increased further than the 50% increase over 5 years already proposed by the Commission; - the reduction of the in-quota-tariff-rate to 20% of the MFN rate should be applied to all quotas; - the entry price for fruit and vegetables s ...[+++]hould not be applied within existing quotas; - in order to ensure a full utilization of quotas associated countries should be authorized to transfer unused quotas among themselves.

What we have tried to do in facilitating the entry of highly skilled workers in the software sector is to fast-track that validation procedure.