Readers should not believe all 'lurid' stories about Bulgaria that British media started publishing recently, The Guardian said in an article written by Bulgarian Yana Buhrer Tavanier.

UK closed it labour market for Bulgarian and Romanian migrant workers and only 20 000 low-skilled migrants will have the opportunity to find job in food processing and agriculture. But "what matters is not what options you have, but what options have been taken away", the report said.

The author said that the majority of Bulgarians were unwilling to move to the UK or to any other EU country, but they wanted to be able to make a choice.

"The free movement of people [was] one of the pillars of the European Union, one of the fundamental freedoms guaranteed by EU law,” the report said.

Bulgaria should not pay for the labour market problems the UK had after the previous EU enlargement in 2004, Guardian reported.

Most of the Bulgarians who wanted to leave the country had already done it during the past 17 years after the communist regime collapsed, Buhrer Tavanier said. Others prefered closer destinations as Italy, Spain and Greece.

An Institute for Public Policy Research study showed that only 15 000 Bulgarians would seek work in the UK in the first year of Bulgaria's EU membership.

According to the article, the UK decision to close the country's labour market for Bulgarians and Romanians was 'prompted' by the fear of the public's reaction.