Free movement of labor migrants is one of the basic principles of the EU, but the old member states of this regional organization have the right for seven years after each enlargement round to shield their national labor markets from workers from new EU countries. As RIA Novosti notes, after Belgium opens its own labor market, Germany and Austria will remain the last of the 15 veteran EU states to keep restrictions on the inflow of labor from Eastern European countries.
As previously reported, Belgian authorities had not reached a consensus on the need to further restrict external labor migration. For instance, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Employment Joëlle Milquet recently told parliamentarians that the government could keep the migration barrier lowered as long as possible – until 2011.
Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht, who is tipped to join the European Commission, for his part stated that the national labor market should be opened to labor migrants from the new EU countries as of May 1. The minister pointed out that thousands of Poles are currently working illegally in Belgium, and if they are given official working status, it will not trigger an inflow of labor but will result in employers paying social contributions and taxes for them.
In neighboring Great Britain, which was one of the first to open access to labor migrants from Eastern Europe and where over a million people from Poland have settled since 2004, amid the global financial and economic crisis, there have been protests against foreign workers, who have long been collectively called 'Polish plumbers' in the country. The European Commission tirelessly calls for opening national labor markets to 'new' Europeans.