Monti attacks restrictions on free movement for new EU

Restrictions on the free movement of workers from new EU members in Eastern Europe should be scrapped as “soon as possible”, former European Competition Commissioner Mario Monti has demanded.

Monti is arguing that transitional arrangements to limit migration hastily put in place across most of the EU 15 in 2004, as ten new members joined, should be abolished.

“Transitional arrangements should be phased out as soon as possible,” he said while presenting the findings of a new report called ‘Who’s afraid of EU enlargement’ to MEPs in Strasbourg on Tuesday.

“There has been no influx to justify them and the unexpected proliferation of complex national quotas and qualitative restrictions undermines the Lisbon strategy for flexible markets and a skilled, mobile labour force.”

Transitional arrangements on migration from the EU’s newest member states were introduced across the EU – with the exception of the UK, Ireland and Sweden – after fears that labour markets would be flooded by cheap workers.

Concerns that jobs would be lost to ‘Polish plumbers’ ran so high in France, that the issue became a decisive factor in the country’s rejection of the EU constitution.

But the figures unveiled in the new report reveal that fears were unjustified: Poles are bypassing France and opting to work in countries such as the UK that are welcoming them.

The UK has a serious labour shortage, and Poles and other workers from the newest member states are “taking up the ‘hard to fill’ jobs”, conclude the reports authors.

Monti, now chairman of the European Citizen Action Service, the non-profit group that produced the report argues that restrictions on free movement are making “a mockery of the internal market”.

And the Italian warned that restricting free movement was “incompatible with European citizenship.”

“We do not want a union of first and second class citizens,” he said.

The results appear to support the conclusions of a recent UK Home Office report on workers from the EU’s newest member states.

Key findings of that report suggest that the influx of foreign workers are helping to plug significant gaps in the UK’s labour market and are keeping the country’s creaking public services afloat.

Monti suggested that member states had become victims of a ‘domino theory’ approach in reacting to scaremongering about possible migration from Eastern Europe.

“The decision to apply strict national measures with reference to the nationals of the new member states last year seem to have been taken in a 'snowball-like-manner' where their implementation by one member state led the neighbouring countries to do the same,” he said.

The former commissioner called for a public hearing in the European Parliament to examine whether the restrictions on free movement are justified.

And he urged the British EU presidency to promote the idea among Europe’s capitals of having the restrictions lifted.

“The UK presidency can easily put forward strong socio-economic arguments, taken from its own experiences, which would support opening of the EU 15 borders for the new EU citizens,” said Monti.

“It puts the presidency in a good position to recommend other member states’ withdrawal from the restrictions.”

London Green MEP Jean Lambert, said the report presented a direct challenge to the myths of free movement.

“Far from being overwhelmed by Polish plumbers - or indeed by plumbers of any other nationality - we see workers from new member states filling jobs in shortage areas, doing work others won't do and making a valuable economic contribution,” said Lambert.

"They do this despite all of the barriers put in their way…member states should recognise that our workforce is our future and remove the barriers to free movement which treat too many citizens as a threat, not an asset."

• Previous article
• Next article