Verenigd Koninkrijk beperkt aantal Roemeense en Bulgaarse werknemers (en)

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Britain has officially confirmed its shift from an open door policy to labour market restrictions on workers from the two newest EU member states - Bulgaria and Romania.

Under the UK scheme - outlined in a written statement to the country's parliament by UK Home Office secretary John Reid on Tuesday (23 October) - the Balkan migrants can live in Britain and work as self-employed persons.

But while high-skilled professionals, such as doctors or computer scientists will be welcome, unskilled jobseekers will only be able to work in the food processing and farming sectors.

Mr Reid suggested that the previous restriction-free approach by London towards the 2004 enlargement states had been successful because migrant workers had filled skills gaps in the UK, the BBC reported.

But he argued that some UK schools had to cope with a "significant rise" in students and some local authorities had reported overcrowding in private housing as a result of the 2004 policy.

Before 2004 enlargement, British officials had expected about 15,000 migrant workers a year to arrive in the country, but around 600,000 have taken the plunge in just two years.

Ireland to follow suit

Britain, Ireland and Sweden were the only three EU member states who opened up labour markets to eastern newcomers, with Dublin now likely to follow London in its pro-restriction shift on Bulgarian and Romanian workers.

Stockholm has announced it will stick to its open door policy, but other west-European countries - Spain, Italy, Finland, Greece and Portugal - which opened up after 2004 have not yet made their position on Romania and Bulgaria clear.

Meanwhile, most of the 10 EU states that joined in 2004 plan to apply the EU principle of free movement of workers and are not considering a policy change towards Sofia and Bucharest.

Spidla supports open doors

Under EU law, national governments must inform the European Commission by the end of this year whether they will introduce any curbs, with a possibility to keep restrictions on Bulgarians and Romanians up to 2014.

EU social commissioner Vladimir Spidla told EUobserver that "All the evidence shows that free movement of labour is really beneficial for countries...Free movement is part of the EU treaty so whatever the temporary limits, it will eventually become a reality."

But he admitted that "all the decisions in this area are not just based on economic arguments but rather on the wider political context" while urging new workers' host governments to help ensure migrants get equal pay and terms.