In the European Year of Workers’ Mobility, conflicting positions are coming to the fore within the EU towards Romania and Bulgaria. Many member states have decided to limit or deny access, at least for the moment, to workers coming from the two countries that are going to join the EU on January 1st 2007. Restrictions of this kind have already been announced by Austria, Denmark, Ireland and, more recently, Great Britain. The opposite position has instead been taken by Sweden, Finland, Latvia and Slovakia. Warsaw has now decided to open its frontiers, despite Poland having the highest unemployment rate (about 15%). "We are not afraid of a wave of workers from these two countries", explained the deputy Minister of Labour, Kazimierz Kuberski. Poland will be ready to host people from Bucharest and Sofia as soon as they officially join the EU. Despite repeated appeals from the Commission for promoting workers’ mobility (flows of labour from east to west have been minimal since 2004, the year of the extension to the former Soviet states), most states have not announced yet what position they are going to take with the newcomers.
