More than 8 years ago the Council Directive 2009/50/EC of 25 May 2009, which is also (and much better) known as Blue Card‐directive, came into effect. Although in general the passing of the directive can be regarded as a milestone in the history of EU migration policy, the first proposals of the directive brought forward by the European Commission envisaged a much deeper and more binding framework including less room for maneuver for the member states. It is well known that particularly the German government at that time spoke out against a (more) extensive Europeanisation of labour migration policy. In sharp contrast to this rather reluctant stance towards ?more Europe? in this area recent developments indicate a significant policy change in the German way of dealing with the question of how much Europe is necessary in labour migration policy. This article seeks to retrace this rather sudden shift and to put it into a broader context of migration policy change in Germany.