EUROPEAN UNION: Circulation Restrictions Rock Expansion Boat

By Mario de Queiroz Reprint | | Print |

Mario de Queiroz

BUDAPEST, Mar 15 2004 (IPS) - All citizens of the European Union have equal rights, but some seem to be more citizens than others as the bloc expands from 15 to 25 states, with restrictions on international movements of people from the new Eastern European members.

Resentment is evident in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia, the eight former socialist countries that as of May 1 will be part of the exclusive “European club”.

Restrictions on the circulation of citizens from those countries, to be in effect for the next seven years, will affect only those eight countries, and not the other two new EU members, Cyprus and Malta, which have traditionally been considered part of Western Europe.

In the first phase, lasting two years, the current 15 members of the EU will be able to impose measures – with no requirement to justify the moves – such as closing their borders or requiring work permits of nationals of the eight new countries.

The policies to be adopted in the following five years (divided into periods of three and two years) will be determined based on the results of the first phase.

Netherlands Labour Minister Jan de Geus stressed during a visit to Budapest last week that work restrictions will be maintained during the first period. His Hungarian counterpart, Sándor Burány, responded that his government “is disappointed, because the EU is modifying its previous promises.”

For Hungary, one of the countries with healthiest economic indicators amongst the new EU members, “the only recourse is reciprocity,” said Burány.

In other words, Budapest will also impose limits on citizens of the current EU, “but that measure is more symbolic than real,” economist Attila Szabó, expert in European affairs, told IPS.

“The entry of the eight into the ‘club’ will not suffer setbacks, but will occur under the condition that their populations accept being treated like second- or third-class citizens,” said the academic.

The current bloc, comprising Austria, Belgium, Britain, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Sweden, “is suspicious of the immigrants from the new EU,” Szabó added.

“This time, the spectre does not arise from Maghreb (western Arab countries), the Middle East, Latin America, or from the Asian or African countries. At the centre of concern now are the citizens of eight of the 10 new members.”

“For the 15, once again the threat comes from the East,” said the Hungarian economist with a note of irony, alluding to the old European divisions during the Cold War.

Endre Aczel, columnist on EU affairs for the Hungarian daily Népszabadság (Liberty of the People), the country’s most influential paper, said Thursday that this change in the EU 15’s attitude “is more likely due to the obligation of providing social benefits than to employment itself.”

“The right to social benefits is irrevocable in the member states, and the only way to not recognise them is to deny employment,” he explained.

Beyond the “politically correct” statements by the bloc’s governments, Aczel said outright that “these restrictive measures reflect the fear that a flood of gypsies will inundate the West (Western Europe) with the aim of receiving those benefits without having to work.”

Most of the Roma (gypsy) population of the European continent lives in the eight new EU member countries, and their income is 23 percent of the current EU average.

In Slovakia, “the gypsies comprise 9.2 percent of the population, in Hungary 4.9 percent and in the Czech Republic 3.1 percent. The eastern zone of Slovakia, where most of this community is concentrated, in May will become the poorest region of the EU,” said economist Szabó.

In addition to “the so-called gypsy invasion,” he said, the EU is leery of Poland, the largest of the eight new members from Eastern Europe, with 38 million people “and an unemployment rate of 22.4 percent, compared to Hungary’s 5.6 percent and the Czech Republic’s 7.8 percent.”

But the restrictions will not apply to all citizens of the eight countries because in the very pragmatic EU there are the necessary ones, says columnist Aczel, predicting that young people trained in computer and information technologies will find work and obtain benefits with little difficulty.

The wealthiest countries of the current EU, led by Germany and Austria, which border the former Soviet bloc, little by little began imposing the stricter approach to circulation across borders.

In justifying the move, they recalled that when Spain and Portugal joined the EU in 1986 they were also subject to a seven-year transitional regimen for circulation of their citizens within the bloc.

In February, Denmark, Finland, France, Netherlands and Sweden – initially more open to the free movement of citizens from the new EU member countries – announced that after taking stock of the situation they are going to apply restrictive policies.

They are going against the approach favoured by Spain, Britain, Ireland and Portugal, while Luxembourg has said it will follow the majority, and Italy has maintained silence, due to internal divisions in the Silvio Berlusconi government.

Britain, which had not created any obvious obstacles, ended up being the big surprise, as the first to take a concrete stance, announced by Prime Minister Tony Blair in early February. He mentioned the “potential threat” coming from the new EU members.

Since then, British Home Secretary David Blunkett has stressed that the people of the eight countries may enter Britain to work but will not be full beneficiaries of the social security system during their first two years in the country.

Next came Ireland. Dublin made it known that it has no alternative but to follow London’s lead, or turn into the “open door” for those who are blocked from the rest of the British Isles.

The normally flexible Portugal also altered course. Prime Minister José Manuel Durão Barroso said last month he is willing to maintain a more progressive stance in the EU sphere, “but without being more open than the other countries, because that could cause a shift of immigrants to our country.”

The number of work visas granted immigrants from the eight new EU members from Eastern Europe allow Portugal a more open attitude than its fellow “old” EU members.

Of the half-million legal immigrants and estimated 100,000 undocumented immigrants in Portugal, the biggest inflows from Europe come from Ukraine, Romania and Moldavia, while there are only 2,313 people from the eight new member countries living in Portugal.

The situation is quite the opposite in Germany and Austria, where most European immigrants come precisely from the new member countries, and from Poland in particular.