While the United Kingdom, caught up in domestic political pressure about the issue, has not yet announced its decision on whether it will admit Bulgarians and Romanians to its labour market after their EU accession, citizens of the two countries will have opportunities to work in other member states.
The Bulgarian Government has been at pains to press home the notion that there will not be a mass exodus from the country after January 1 2007. The most recent evidence it offered was a survey commissioned by the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy. Done in August, the survey found that 80 per cent of Bulgarians had no intention of emigrating either for a short-term or long-term period, that the percentage of those who wanted to seek work abroad had dropped from seven per cent in 2001 to three per cent now, and that most of those who were considering emigration wanted to go only on a short-term basis.
In spite of possible perceptions that the countries most amenable to accepting employees from the two newcomer states would be those from the most recent wave of EU expansion, some Western European countries have indicated that they would be willing to accept Bulgarian and Romanian workers.
On September 1, Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen told his Bulgarian counterpart Sergei Stanishev that his country would not restrict Bulgarians and Romanians from its labour market.
Soon afterwards, Bulgarian Deputy Interior Minister Boiko Kotsev said that Belgium had said that it would admit workers from the two countries. However, more recently the strong performance of the right-wing anti-immigrant Vlaams Belang in local elections held within the country on the weekend of October 8 and 9 led to media reports that the group would try to block access of workers from the two new member states. It was expected that other political groups would co-operate to keep Vlaams Belang out of power, and even so it is questionable how the outcome of local elections could alter foreign policy.
Later in September, Czech and Slovak officials respectively indicated that they would admit Bulgarians and Romanians to their labour markets. This has a special significance because, as countries that were among the group admitted to the EU in 2004, the Czech Republic and Slovakia have been the subject of restrictions on access to labour markets.
In the Czech Republic, Martin Schmarz, spokesperson for prime minister Mirek Topolanek, told local Pravo newspaper: “We should not do what was done to us as newcomers”. According to the Czech labour ministry, there are already about 4600 Bulgarians and 2800 Romanians working in the country. It is not clear to what extent these numbers will increase after January 2007.
In Slovakia, president Ivan Gasparovic said that anything less than an open labour market would be “political discrimination”. Slovak foreign minister Jan Kubis said that all EU countries should be equal, with equal rights.
Estonia, praised in a recent edition of Time magazine for its economic performance, has announced that it will open its labour market to Bulgarians and Romanians.
In August, Norway’s prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg, said that his country intended opening its labour market to Bulgarians.
Finland, currently the holder of the rotating presidency of the EU, also has said that it would allow Bulgarians and Romanians to work there.
According to the EUobserver newspaper, Poland, Latvia and Lithuania were also expected to admit citizens of the newcomer EU members into their labour markets, but no official announcement had yet been made. There have been contradictory media reports about the position that Hungary will take.
In a September 9 interview with Bulgaria’s Focus news agency, the French ambassador to Bulgaria, Yves Saint-Geours, was quoted as saying that his country had for some period of time adopted a restrictive policy aimed at preventing integration difficulties in the French labour market. This policy had been adopted, he said, because of the high level of unemployment in France at the time, and the strong presence of a population of foreign origin.
After May 2006, the French government had removed some restrictions, allowing in workers in 61 occupations where there was a strong demand in France that could not be met domestically.
“As things go, it is very likely that this list widens while the situation improves,” he said. Recently, the growth rate had improved and unemployment had fallen.
“We work for a controlled opening of the labour market, trying to avoid the ideological postulates where the lines of the debate would be either ‘integral freedom of settlement’ or ‘absolute restriction’.” Saint-Geours said that France was in a process of progressive opening of its labour market, which implied a process of negotiation with other countries, including Bulgaria after it became an EU member.
As to Ireland, in a September interview, ambassador Geoffrey Keating indicated that it was likely that Dublin would co-ordinate its approach with that of the UK, given that the two countries’ labour markets were connected.
Last but most definitely not least, there is considerable interest in the decisions that will be taken by Germany and Spain, which according to recent surveys and statistics are the EU countries most favoured by Bulgarians as places to seek work.
In a series of official engagements, Bulgaria has asked Germany to open its labour market. Labour and Social Policy Minister Emilia Maslarova said that a labour agreement had existed between Bulgaria and Germany since 1991, and at no point since that year had Bulgaria used up its quota.
On October 6, during a visit to Spain, Deputy Foreign Minister Gergana Gruncharova urged the country to allow Bulgarians unrestricted access to its labour market from next year.
