United Kingdom trade secretary Alistair Darling said on August 20 that the UK would limit the number of people who could migrate from Bulgaria and Romania when the two countries join the European Union, to prevent immigrants from overwhelming public services.

“Immigration has to be carefully managed,” Darling said in an interview with the BBC.

“You have got to have a system that is properly managed and balanced. We have got to consider what skills we need,” he said.

Earlier on August 20, the BBC reported that the UK Conservative Party was also calling for restrictions on immigrant workers from Bulgaria and Romania ahead of the countries joining the EU.

Party immigration spokesman Damian Green said ministers had to learn from the “unprecedented numbers” who arrived in the UK after the most recent EU expansion.

According to the Sunday Telegraph, the move comes amid concerns about a potential surge of new migrant workers when the two states join the EU, provisionally scheduled for January 2007.

Meanwhile, a media campaign in the UK continued with pleas to restrict the access to the jobs market of migrant workers from Bulgaria and Romania.

An August 18 article in the Financial Times said that some of UK’s biggest employer organisations had asked for the restriction.

Business leaders previously welcomed the opportunity to overcome labour shortages and stem wage inflation by hiring thousands of cheaper Eastern European workers from countries that join the EU in 2004.

But now, according to the Financial Times, some are concerned about the potential impact on over-stretched public services and local communities if the government continues its “open door” policy towards workers from prospective new member states.

Susan Anderson, director of human resources policy at the CBI, the biggest employer body, said that there was “a strong argument to pause for a period before opening up to workers from further new member states, while we learn the lessons from experience to date”.

David Frost, director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce, also argued for a “pause” in the “open-door policy towards migrant workers”.

The Financial Times quote official figures, according to which 392 000 workers from Eastern Europe had applied under the government’s registration scheme since May 2004. The actual numbers were much higher, the newspaper said.

The catering and hospitality industry, a big employer of migrant workers, also opposes an open-door policy for Bulgarian and Romanian workers.

Bob Cotton, chief executive of the British Hospitality Association, said that “migrant workers should only be allowed in if it can be proved there is an existing skill shortage”.

But organisations representing the agriculture and food processing industries, which employ large numbers of migrant workers, favour free access to Bulgarian and Romanian workers.

Philip Hudson, chief horticultural adviser at the National Farmers’ Union, said that there were signs that workers from Eastern European member states were now more reluctant to take jobs such as picking fruit and vegetables and this could lead to dangerous labour shortages if other migrant workers were excluded from the labour market.

The UK government has yet to indicate whether workers from Romania and Bulgaria will enjoy the full working rights associated with being an EU citizen from the outset.

Meanwhile, the British Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) said that as few as 15 000 Bulgarians and 41 000 Romanians were likely to migrate to the UK after the two countries join the EU in 2007, a fraction of the 160 000 new arrivals mentioned by UK government officials earlier.

Approached by Sofia-based Bulgaria in EU Press Centre on August 16, IPPR researcher Catherine Drew, one of the authors of a study on “EU Enlargement: Bulgaria and Romania - migration implications for the UK”, said that her institute’s study was based on a transparent methodology, while the government’s figures were “leaked” without any explanation what methodology was behind them.

The IPPR said that the UK government should allow labour market access to Romanian and Bulgarian nationals to work in Britain after the 2007 accession because new inflows were likely to be relatively small, the impacts on the UK labour market were likely to be positive, free access would have to be introduced eventually and a separate scheme would increase bureaucracy, and the Romanians and Bulgarians already there would be able to regularise their status.

Allowing labour market access to workers after the 2004 enlargement has proved beneficial for the UK. Although the new workers who came to Britain during the first year exceeded official estimates, their impact has been positive, the IPPR concludes.

Drew also emphasised the factor of strong traditions of migration of Bulgarians and Romanians to countries like Spain, Italy or Greece, which might “defuse” immigration pressure away from new destinations such as the British Isles.