Brussels, 25/08/2005 (Agence Europe) - 'The fears and scepticism of the 'unknown' mean that enlargement - uniting now 450 million inhabitants - is seen as a controversial issue and that the new Member States still have to combat the stereotypes, one of which is the flooding of the Western labour market with a cheap Eastern workforce,' comments Julianna Traser in her 'Report on the Free Movement of Workers in EU25 - Who's afraid of EU enlargement?' edited by Tony Venables and published by the European Citizen Action Service (ECAS), chaired by former European Commissioner Mario Monti. This preparatory report, along with questions, complaints and comments received at the ECAS hotline, will be used by Mario Monti to prepare a more detailed report to be presented to MEPs in Strasbourg on 6 September. The preparatory report is not a comparative study of the gathered data since information varies from one country to the next, but it does reveal that the fears of citizens in some old Member States that there will be a save of workers from the new Member States of central and Eastern Europe (fears which have given rise to temporary restrictions on the freedom of circulation for workers) are unjustified and based more on prejudice and disinformation campaigns than on reliable facts. In the conclusions, the report quotes Slovakian Jan Figel's warning: 'The thinking that we need long transition periods 14 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall shows a lack of solidarity,' The report points out that labour movement forecasts 'put the long-term migration potential of candidate countries at roughly 1% of the current population.' The experience of the Southern enlargement showed that following the abolition of restrictions, migration from Spain did not change, while migration from Portugal increased only slightly. Common sense argues that plans to migrate do not depend solely on economic expectations, but are influenced by personal factors as well, and deterring factors might be language, cultural barriers, family connections, fear of administrative red tape, etc.
ECAS says that monitoring of the experiences of the first year of enlargement (to the EU25) 'should now lead the European institutions to launch a hearing to allow citizens, public and private organisations to express their views on the accession. The European Institutions should also take into account the shortcomings of the enlargement and especially the issue of the free movement of workers, by re-evaluating the application of the transitional measures in the light of recent labour market trends and the requirements of the internal market.'
Not all Member States supplied statistics, but all the same, this report is the first one to give an overall picture of the migration of new Member State nationals after 1 May 2004, providing a series of significant examples from both the old and the new Member States.
Two countries, the UK and Ireland, do not place any restrictions on access to the labour market. In the United Kingdom, the number of workers from the eight Member States of central and Eastern Europe (A8) registered in the UK between May 2004 and March 2005 is 175,000 (56% of whom are Polish, followed by Lithuanians, Czechs and Slovaks), but they only account for 0.4% of the workforce. Some of the migrants are electricians, builders and carpenters, but there are also dentists an the report notes that qualified workers are 'warmly welcomed' in the UK, but 'their departure leads to worries in their home countries. Given the fact that a large number of the migrants are young and highly qualified, the sending countries (such as Poland or Hungary) fear not simply a 'brain drain', but rather a 'youth drain'. The presence of Central European workers in Ireland is not a recent phenomenon. 85,000 social security numbers were allocated to migrants from the accession countries over the past 12 months, 'six times more per head of population than in Britain' Poles top the list, followed by Lithuanians and Latvians. Most migrant workers found employment in construction and hospitals.
'Applying no transitional measures, opting for no safeguard clause and granting equal access to its welfare system for nationals of the new Member States, Sweden is the only country amongst the EU15 to have given full meaning to free movement within the enlarged Union.' From May to December 2004, Sweden issued 21,800 residence permits, at the same time experiencing an important reduction in the number of work permits issued since new Member State nationals no longer need a work permit in Sweden. Poles top the list in Sweden, followed by Lithuanians and Estonians.
Countries applying transition measures: In Scandinavian countries other than Sweden, Denmark issued 3,250 residence permits by April 2005 (mainly to Poles, Lithuanians and Latvians), while figures for Finland report the presence of 13,978 Estonian nationals in Finland (there are more Russians than Estonians in Finland).
The vast majority of workers from countries bordering on Austria (Slovakians, Hungarians and Czechs) have not plans to migrate. After enlargement, the number of Hungarians working in Burgenland and Vienna only rose by 1.09% (13488 in April 2004, 14753 in May 2005). The presence of Slovak and Czech nationals increased by 1.11% (to 13996), with similar statistics for Polish workers. Following accession, migration from A8 workers to Germany decreased to its lowest level since 1991 (the report comments on the large number of seasonal workers). Between May 2004 and December 2005, only 9494 work permits were granted in France to A8 workers but despite the low statistics, the argument of the 'Polish plumber' has had an impact on public opinion. The Netherlands, in addition to their work permit system, imposed a quota of 22000 for migrant workers. The number of work permits issued to new Member State nationals had doubled from 12,540 to 24,728 after enlargement. Polish workers make up 82% of A8 migrants, not including seasonal work and catering permits. In Greece, of the 6,711 work permits issued to EU nationals from May 2004 to February 2005, only 580 were granted to A8 nationals.
4. New Member States. The report notes that the inhabitants of the Baltic States have relatively low mobility because of the economic boom at home, but Lithuanians tend to migrate (to the UK, Ireland and Sweden) slightly more than Estonians (to Finland) or Latvians (Lithuanians, Estonians, Finns and Swedes have moved to Latvia). Around 150,000 Slovaks work in the enlarged Europe, 18,000 of them in the UK, 6500 in Italy and 5500 in Ireland, along with 61,000 in the Czech Republic and 20,000 in Hungary. Czechs continue to migrate to Germany and Austria, and increasing numbers of migrants are moving to the Czech Republic. Relatively few Hungarians are willing to work abroad. The two main destinations are Austria for unskilled workers and the UK for highly qualified workers, like anaesthetists. The report describes Poland and Slovenia as being at the antipodes. If seasonal workers are included in the calculations, 450,000 Polish nationals worked in other EU Member States during the first year of enlargement (21% in both France and Germany, 11% in Italy and 7% each in the Netherlands and Ireland, according to the Polish foreign ministry). The location of 35,000 foreign companies in Poland explains the presence of 35,000 foreigners living in Poland, of whom Germans make up the biggest group (about 20,000), followed by French (about 10,000). Slovenia, at the other end of the scale, has a very low outflow of workers, while the number of new Member State nationals taking up employment in Slovenia has doubled. 2,280 EU nationals are registered in Slovenia, with the number of Slovak workers tripling after enlargement to1,047, and the number of Polish and Czech workers doubling, although on a smaller scale (123 and 100 respectively). (Info: ECAS, 83 Prince Royal, B-1000 Brussels, Tel: +32 2 548 9823, Fax: +32 2 511 9087, e-mail c.gonthier@ecas.org )