EU Commission report finds movement of workers 'positive'

A European Commission report has revealed that workers’ mobility from the new EU member states in Central and Eastern Europe has had mostly positive effects and has been in most countries quantitatively less important than expected.

Workers from the new member states helped to relieve labour market shortages and contributed to better economic performance in Europe. Countries that have not applied restrictions after May 2004 (UK, Ireland and Sweden) have experienced high economic growth, a drop of unemployment and a rise of employment.

The 12 EU countries using transitional arrangements, where workers managed to obtain access legally, was found to have contributed to a smooth integration into the labour market. However, evidence suggested that some of these countries may also have faced undesirable side-effects, such as higher levels of undeclared work and bogus self-employed work. For the EU as a whole, flows of workers have been rather limited.

The report's statistics, submitted by the EU member states themselves, show most countries having seen lower than expected labour flows from Central and Eastern Europe.

There was no evidence of a surge in either numbers of workers or welfare expenditure following enlargement, compared to the previous two years. New member state nationals represented less than 1% of the working age population in all countries except Austria (1.4% in 2005) and Ireland (3.8% in 2005).

Ireland has seen relatively the largest inflow of workers. This contributed to its very good economic performance. The workers alleviated skills bottlenecks, and had a much lower percentage of unskilled workers than the national equivalent according to the 'Report on the Functioning of Transitional Arrangements'.

Acknowledging member states’ right to decide on the further use of transitional arrangements, Vladimír Špidla, EU Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities urged Member States to carefully consider whether the continuation of transitional arrangements is needed, in the light of the report's findings.

He said: "Free movement of workers is one of the four fundamental freedoms of the EU. This report clearly shows that the movement of free workers has not had disruptive effects on EU15 labour market. Quite the contrary individual countries and Europe as a whole has benefited from it."

The report indicated that national restrictions had little direct effect on controlling workers’ movement.

According to the Accession Treaty, member states have until 30 April 2006 to decide whether to lift national restrictions on workers' free movement in the EU.

These were introduced in May 2004 except in Ireland, Sweden and the UK. Reciprocal restrictions on labour flows were imposed by three new member states: Hungary, Poland and Slovenia.

The Commission’s report is to be presented to the Council.

(SP)