“The flows of labour from the new EU member states to Western Europe has had a basically favourable impact”. This was confirmed by a report of Barroso’ Commission, submitted in Brussels, which looks at the situation of professional migration and the job market in the post-accession EU. As previewed by Sir last Tuesday, “flows of workers have been moderate” after May 1st 2004, the date on which the EU grew from 15 to 25 member states. “The statistics processed from data provided by the national governments explained the commissioner for employment and social affairs, Vladimír pidla -, show that the flow of workers from Central and Eastern Europe has been lower than expected. An increase in the number of workers or in the welfare costs after the accession, compared with the 2 previous years, has not been proven”. In all of the 15 EU member states, “the citizens of the new member states account for less than 1% of the labour”, except in Austria (1.4% in 2005) and Ireland (3.8%). In addition, those countries that “after May 2004 did not apply any restriction to the flow of labour (United Kingdom, Ireland and Sweden) reported a powerful economic growth, a drop in the unemployment rate and an increase in the employment rate”. (to be continued)
