Western Europe's negative attitude towards the potential wave of Bulgarian and Romanian migrant workers was provoked by the Cold War memory, The Guardian's online version said.

Bulgaria and Romania were described as “backward, mafia-ridden hell-holes that would infect the rest of the continent”, but their political systems were probably not less corrupted than “Berlusconi-tainted Italy or cash-for-honours Britain”, The Guardian said.

Eastern Europeans were flooding into Britain not only because of the "pernicious legacy" of 40 years of communism, but as a result of “the neoliberal economic policies of the early 90s”, The Guardian said.

These countries had to face a 20 to 40 per cent decrease of the GDP in the decade after 1989, a fall of living standard and a rise of unemployment and inequality.

The Eastern European countries had been persuaded for 17 years that they needed reforms and modernisation and that “west is best”, The Guardian said. No wonder then why people would like migrate to the west, the article said.

The biggest losers form the workers' migration were the Eastern European countries themselves, as they were loosing so many young, talented and productive people, The Guardian said.